Aussie shares are lower at midday following falls on Wall St overnight after weak data on the services sector of the US economy caused fresh concern for the health of an economic recovery. Locally resource stocks are leading the declines with top miners BHP and Rio Tinto both down.
The S&P/ASX200 index is 55 points lower at 4,719 and on the futures market the SPI 200’s down 62 points.
In company news: Toll road operator ConnectEast Group (ASX:CEU) says it recorded the highest number of average daily trips on its EastLink toll road since tolling began on July 27 2008. The company says the average daily trips on the road for November rose 19.4% compared to November last year to 169,530 trips, a 0.3% increase on October 2009. ConnectEast says the average daily revenue of $553,434 was 25.8% higher than last year but 0.3% lower than October 2009 due to two less workdays in November. Shares in ConnectEast Group rose 1.2 per cent to 40.5 cents.
Challenger Financial Services Group Ltd (ASX:CGF) has been added to the S&P/ASX100 index in Standard and Poor’s December quarterly rebalance. Challenger has replaces Viterra, formerly ABB Grain on the index. In addition to this a number of companies have made it onto the S&P/ASX200 index including Whitehaven Coal and Kagara, Mermaid Marine Australia, Ardent Leisure Group, carsales.com and Biota Holdings, with Corporate Express Australia, Nexus Energy, Molopo Australia, Astro Japan Property Group, AJ Lucas Group and Eircom Holdings removed. Shares in Challenger Financial Services Group fell 2.34 per cent to $4.18.
Turning now to market indices: All sectors are in the red at midday, however the sector with the smallest loss is the Energy index which is down 94 points to 15,905. Shares in Mantra Resources advanced 5.71% to $4.44. Shares in Whitehaven Coal and Linc Energy are also higher.
The worst performing sector at midday is the Materials index, down 229 points to 12,429. Shares in Aquarius Platinum fell 4.92% to $6.57. Shares in Avoca Resources and James Hardie Industries are also lower at noon.
Looking to New Zealand and the NZSX50 is 10 points lower. Taking a look now at the top 5 stocks by turnover: Top of the list is Telstra with stock steady at $4.45 followed by; Telecom of New Zealand, Fletcher Building, AMP NZ Office Trust Ordinary Units, and Kiwi Income Property Trust Ordinary Units.
To gold and the dollar: Gold is trading at US$1,202.35 an ounce and the Aussie dollar is trading at 92.18 US cents.
