We’re looking a slightly softer start for the Australian share market this morning after mixed leads from offshore markets overnight.
Wall Street and precious metals managed to finish higher, but copper and oil ended weaker.
There was also bad news from the latest US jobs data. The Labor Department said 484,000 new claims for jobless benefits were filed last week, up 24,000 from the previous week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 21 points higher at 11,145. The S&P500 Index is up 1 point at 1,212 and the NASDAQ rose 11 points to 2,516.
European stock markets closed higher. London’s FTSE gained 29 points, Paris advanced 8 points and Frankfurt rose 13 points.
Asian stocks were mixed Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 36 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei is up 69 points and China’s Shanghai Composite lost 1 point.
Australian stocks finished higher yesterday with both key indices finishing above 5,000 points for the first time since the global financial crisis unfolded. The S&P/ASX 200 Index finished 7 points stronger at 5,002 and on the futures market the SPI200 is down 4 points. On to currencies: the Aussie Dollar at 8:40AM was buying 93.36 US cents, 60.37 Pence Sterling, 86.9 Yen and 68.8 Euro cents.
To company news around this morning: Tabcorp (ASX:TAH) shares closed up 0.14% yesterday to $7.02. Tabcorp is close to finalising a deal to assist poker-machine entrepreneur John Nicholson acquire 11 gaming pubs in Victoria. The hotels are part of a portfolio of leasehold pubs owned by the Castello Group, and have an estimated value of more than $70 million. Tabcorp is not permitted to operate hotels with gaming facilities in Victoria until it loses it poker machine license in mid-2012. But a deal with Mr Nicholson is part of a plan by Tabcorp to gain entry into the sector ahead of planned regulatory changes. Last year Tabcorp began offering finance packages to hundreds of pub operators who were planning to bid for poker machine licenses, in an effort to claw back some of the huge amounts of money that it will lose form 2012. Tabcorp achieved a $521 million net profit in 2009.
Wesfarmers (ASX:WES) shares rose yesterday, up 0.15% to $32.75. Wesfarmers has taken a step towards reclaiming the credit rating it lost in November 2007 when it took on $10 billion of debt to buy Coles. Rating agency Standard & Poor’s placed Wesfarmers on its ‘BBB +’ rating, which is a step closer to upgrading the company’s debt to rating of ‘A –.’ S&P said that Wesfarmers could have its ratings restored within two years, so long as it keeps up its improved performance. A better rating is likely to mean lower costs of funds should Wesfarmers want to borrow more money. Some analysts however believe that an upgrade to A- is likely to happen for Wesfarmers sooner rather than later. Wesfarmers posted just over $1.5 billion net profit in 2009, an improvement on the two years before.
Just the one company going ex-dividend today and that’s Washington H. Soul Pattinson with a 14 cent fully franked dividend.
To commodities: The price of gold rose 70 cents to US$1,159.70 an ounce for the May contract on Comex. Silver improved 2 cents to US$18.42 and copper is down 1 cent at US$3.60.
And the price of oil fell 33 cents to US$85.51 a barrel for May light crude in New York.
