We’re looking at a flat start for the Australian share market this morning following weaker results from Wall Street and most major world markets, and mixed commodity prices.
Global markets came under pressure over Greece’s debt problems as credit agencies warned of further downgrades to Greece's sovereign debt, which could undermine the country's efforts to tackle its debt crisis.
Wall Street stocks dived as sentiment took a hit from the latest jobs data, showing the market has weakened.
The US Labor Department said new claims for US jobless benefits jumped to a three-month high last week and rose to 496,000, up from 474,000 last week.
Checking how US Markets finished up - the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 53 points to 10,321 points. The S&P500 Index lost 2 points to 1,103 and the NASDAQ is down 2 points to 2,234.
To other international markets, European stocks were lower. London’s FTSE fell 65 points, Paris is down 75 and Frankfurt lost 83.
Asian stocks closed mixed with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 68 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei dropped 97 and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 38 points.
The Australian share market closed lower yesterday on broad-based falls after fresh worries about Greece's debt problems and as investors digested local earnings results.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 54 points to 4,594 and on the futures market the SPI200’s is up 11 points. On to currencies: the Aussie Dollar at 8:45AM was buying 88.82 US cents, 58.21 Pence Sterling, 79.17 Yen and 65.58 Euro cents.
In economic news, the Reserve Bank of Australia releases financial aggregates data for January.
There are a number of Australian companies reporting today including: first-half results are due from Woolworths, AGL Energy, Crown and Harvey Norman.While QBE Insurance Group releases full-year results.
To company news around this morning: ANZ Banking Group (ASX:ANZ) shares closed 1.2% lower yesterday to $22.25. ANZ has issued its trading update this morning - reporting a 16 per cent rise in cash profit due to falling bad debt charges and expanding interest margins. ANZ said underlying profit after tax for the four months to January 31 was $1.6 billion. Customer deposits are up 2.5% from the end of the 2009 financial year, driven by increases in Australian retail and Asia Pacific institutional deposits. Earlier this month, the top three Australian banks said the threat of ballooning bad debts had passed but warned that they're not out of the woods yet with threats of further short-term risks from rising funding costs, slow loan growth and global volatility. Compared to other international banks, Australian lenders have withstood the global financial crisis and are now sitting on large pools of surplus capital. As a result they might need to meet impending tough rules on the amount and type of capital banks must hold to prevent future crises. ANZ’s 2009 net profit was a healthy $2.9 billion.
Westfield Group (ASX:WDC) shares closed down 1.01% yesterday to $11.81. The Wall Street journal is reporting that retail giant could enter the $10 billion-plus bidding war for the collapsed US shopping mall owner General Growth Properties. Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper reported that Westfield Group has signed a nondisclosure agreement to start studying General Growth's operations and a possible bid for the company. A spokesman for Westfield has so far declined to comment to media. Westfield, which owns over 100 shopping centres across the Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK, joins other potential suitors for General Growth, including Brookfield Asset Management. General Growth filed for bankruptcy last April. However it said on Wednesday that it might attempt to exit bankruptcy by splitting into two separate firms with the help of a capital infusion from Brookfield. Westfield Group posted over a $2 billion loss in 2008.
Taking a look at ex-dividends: Among those going today we have Amalgamated Holdings with a 14 cent fully franked dividend and Bendigo Adelaide Bank with a 28 cent fully franked dividend. And over to Monday we have ASX with a 89.1 cent fully franked dividend and BHP Billiton with a 49.19 cent fully franked dividend.
To commodities: Gold jumped $11.20 overnight to just over US$1,108 an ounce for the April contract on Comex. For the May contract Silver fell 2 cents to US$15.94 and copper lost 4 cents at US$3.21.
And finally, oil lost ground, slipping $1.70 to US$78.30 a barrel for April light crude in New York.
