Australian shares are expected to open higher led by Wall Street and a stronger oil price.
US Stocks posted slim gains early in the session after a worse-than-expected new home sales report for January.
New home sales fell 11% to 309,000 from 348,000 in December.
US stocks later rallied after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke vowed once again to keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future, reassuring investors worried about the outlook for the economy.
Checking the figures the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 92 points to 10,374 points. The S&P500 Index added 11 points to 1,105 and the NASDAQ is up 22 points to 2,236.
To other international markets, European stocks gained. London’s FTSE rose 28 points, Paris is up 9 and Frankfurt gained 11.
Asian stocks closed mixed with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 155 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei dropped 153 and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 40 points.
The Australian share market was dragged lower yesterday after resources heavyweights BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto lost ground on softer base metals prices.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 70 points to 4,649 and on the futures market the SPI200’s is up 22 points. On to currencies: the Aussie Dollar at 8:50AM was buying 89.35 US cents, 57.99 Pence Sterling, 80.56 Yen and 66.01 Euro cents.
In economic news, the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases data on private new capital expenditure in the December quarter and expected expenditure through calendar 2010.
The ABS also releases Average Weekly Time Earnings data for the December quarter.
There are a number of Australian companies reporting today including: first-half results from Insurance Australia Group, REA Group, Perpetual, IOOF Holdings, Downer EDI, Lend Lease, Macquarie Telecom Group, Alinta Energy, Goodman Fielder, Origin Energy, Ramsay Health Care, Toll Holdings, Macquarie Telecom Group and Flight Centre.
Full-year results are due from Macquarie Airports Group, OZ Minerals and Iluka Resources.
To company news around this morning:
Shares in the Seven Network (ASX:SEV) closed lower yesterday, slipping 0.7% to $7.10. Peter Gammell, the man charged with running a proposed combination of Kerry Stokes's media and mining services businesses, says he’s been encouraged by two days of meetings with institutional investors over the $3 billion merger deal. Gammell has told the Australian newspaper that most of the feedback has been pretty positive. Mr Gammell has held more than 12 one-on-one meetings with fund managers since Mr Stokes announced on Monday that he planned to restructure his business interests by merging the listed Seven Network with his privately held WesTrac Caterpillar mining and industrial equipment company. If the deal is approved by shareholders at a meeting scheduled for mid-April, Mr Stokes, who owns 49 per cent of Seven, would end up with 68 per cent of a combined group with annual revenues of $2.8 billion. The potential addition of WesTrac to the Seven portfolio of media and telecommunications assets has caught many investors offguard but Mr Gammell believes that most have come to terms with the proposed deal. The Seven Network’s 2009 net profit was $12 million.
Shares in Clough (ASX:CLO) closed 4.06 per cent weaker at 82.5 cents. Clough has made a partial takeover offer for smaller engineering and construction contractor Forge Group. Perth based Clough yesterday announced plans to spend up to $98 million, representing a 56 per cent stake. Under a placement, Clough will invest about $19.5 million for about 10.25 million Forge shares at $1.90 per share, subject to shareholder approval. After the transaction is completed, Clough intends to make a proportional cash takeover offer at $2.10 per share for 50 per cent of Forge shares. Clough says that the proposed transactions provide both companies with access to growth and operational benefits that wouldn’t otherwise be available to them in isolation. Clough’s 2009 net profit was $52 million.
Taking a look at ex-dividends: There are many companies going ex-dividend today including Ansell with a 13 cent fully franked dividend and Hunter Hall with 20.60 cent fully franked dividend, plus NRW Holdings with a 3 cent fully franked dividend and Symex Holdings with a 1 cent fully franked dividend.
To commodities: Gold is down $6.40 to US$1,096.80 an ounce for the April contract on Comex. For the May contract Silver rose 7 cents to US$15.98 and copper rose 1 cent at US$3.25.
And finally the price of oil is up $1.30 to US$80.16 a barrel for April light crude in New York.
