The Australian share market is expected to open slightly higher this morning, following a mixed lead from Wall Street and offshore markets.
US stocks were nearly flat overnight. Market sentiment lifted after American International Group announced it would sell its Alico life insurance unit to Metlife, but the optimism was offset by falling healthcare shares as a result of President Barack Obama criticising insurance premium increases.
However, investors were still encouraged by jobs data on Friday revealing the US lost fewer jobs in February than expected.
European stocks also neared the flat line, losing much of their lustre as the rally brought on by positive US jobs data petered out and uncertainty about Europe’s economic recovery returned.
To the figures now and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 14 points to 10,553 points. The S&P500 Index closed flat at 1,139 and the NASDAQ added 6 points to 2,332.
European stocks closed mixed yesterday. London’s FTSE rose 7 points, Paris lost 7 and Frankfurt was down 1 point.
Asian stocks closed higher with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gaining 409 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei rose 217 and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 22 points.
The local share market closed higher yesterday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index added 41 points to 4,808 and on the futures market the SPI200 is up 7 points. On to currencies: the Aussie Dollar at 8:55AM was buying 90.95 US cents, 60.37 Pence Sterling, 82.12 Yen and 66.72 Euro cents.
In economic news: ANZ’s job advertisements survey for February is set to be released today along with Dun and Bradstreet’s business expectations survey.
To company news around this morning: Shares in Intoll Group Ltd (ASX:ITO) closed higher yesterday, gaining 1.66% to $1.22. The toll road investor has agreed to pay $20 million to settle a legal stoush launched last year by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, a former major shareholder in Intoll’s predecessor Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG). The Canadian pension plan claims an announcement by MIG in 2006 to sell its half stake in four US toll roads was a ‘trigger’ event, providing an opportunity to turn a bundle of convertible notes into stapled securities. The fund claimed it missed subsequent gains in MIG’s share price. Ontario Teachers sold its stake in October for $342 million. Intoll Group posted a loss of $1.713 billion for fiscal 2009.
Shares in Atlas Iron Ltd (ASX:AGO) closed stronger yesterday, adding 4.25% to $2.21. The iron ore group has entered a deal on port capacity allocation with Aurox Resources, which is expected to boost its aggressive growth plans. Atlas’s ambitions to expand its operations in the Pilbara are currently limited by the access it can gain to port infrastructure. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Aurox recently paid a final instalment of $12.6 million for pre-paid facility charges to the port authority at Port Hedland, securing access to 6 million tonnes of annual export port capacity from 2012. Atlas reportedly provided loan funds to Aurox to make the payment. Atlas Iron reported a loss of $63.14 million for the 12 months to June 30, 2009.
There are a number of companies going ex-dividend today. Among them we have Beyond International with a 3 cent unfranked dividend, CSL with a 35 cent unfranked dividend and Gazal Corporation with a fully franked 4 cent dividend. Iress Market Technology, Western Areas and Austereo are also going today.
To commodities: Gold is down $10.70 to US$1,124.50 an ounce for the April contract on Comex. For the May contract Silver is down 11 cents to US$17.27 and copper fell 1 cent to US$3.41.
And finally the price of oil gained $0.23 to US$81.73 a barrel for April light crude in New York.
