The Australian share market may be in for a slightly lower start this morning following mixed leads from Wall St overnight with a fall in the price of oil likely to pressure energy stocks today.
US stocks closed a choppy session mixed on Wednesday, investors were wary despite strong earnings from Apple and Morgan Stanley.
Healthcare stocks took a beating after both Abbott Laboratories and Gilead Sciences slashed their earnings outlooks due to the impact of costs associated with the US healthcare reform.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 8 points higher at 11,125. The S&P500 Index is down a point at 1,206 and the NASDAQ closed 4 points higher 2,505.
European stock markets closed lower. London’s FTSE lost 60 points, Paris dropped 49 points and Frankfurt decreased 34 points.
Asian stocks were mixed on Wednesday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 112 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei is up 189 points and China’s Shanghai Composite is 54 points higher.
Australian stocks closed higher on Wednesday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index finished 29 points stronger at 4,954, and on the futures market the SPI200 is down 35 points. On to currencies: the Aussie Dollar at 8:40AM was buying 92.72 US cents, 60.14 Pence Sterling, 86.35 Yen and 69.25 Euro cents.
In local economic news: The ABS is to release figures for sales of new motor vehicles in March today.
To company news around this morning: Shares in National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX:NAB) fell 1.28% to $28.46 yesterday. The bank says it will not sell the Aviva wealth management business it acquired less than a year ago as it pursues options regarding its bid for AXA Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd (ASX:AXA). The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission blocked NAB’s bid for AXA on concern that it would lessen competition in the retail investment platform market. It is widely speculated that NAB may look to offload some assets to ease the regulator’s concerns. According to a report in The Australian the bank says that while it is actively pursuing its options it is committed to the Aviva business and refuses to offload the asset to help ease the ACCC’s concerns. It is believed that AMP is to discuss with AXA’s French parent AXA SA a fresh bid for AXA following the ACCC’s decision. NAB booked a profit of over $2.5 billion in the year to September 30, 2009.
Shares in Sigma Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX:SIP) gained 2.1% to $0.485 on Wednesday. There are reports the company may have to pay back over $200 million in damages to investors over an alleged breach of its continuous disclosure obligations after posting a massive loss for the year. According to the Sydney Morning Herald US litigation funder Comprehensive Legal Funding reports that it has received approaches from shareholders angry over the lengthy trading halt the company took before announcing a $389 million loss for the year. Just months earlier the company had conducted a $297 million capital raising and said it expected to report moderate growth in full year earnings above its 2009 result of $80 million profit. Sigma Pharmaceuticals paid a total of 3 cents a share in dividends to shareholders in the year to January 30, 2010.
Taking a look now at ex-dividends: And while there are no companies going ex-dividend today, coming up tomorrow we have Brickworks, OM Holdings and Prime Infrastructure Group.
To commodities: The price of gold rose $9.60 to US$1,148.20 an ounce for the June contract on Comex. Silver gained 26 cents to US$18.07 and copper is 2 cents higher at US$3.53.
And the price of oil dropped $0.17 to US$83.68 a barrel for June light crude in New York.
