Following a mixed lead from Wall St overnight, the local share market is slightly higher at midday lifted by gains in the miners like heavy weights BHP and Rio Tinto on higher commodity prices.
The S&P/ASX200 index is 11 points higher at 4,892, and on the futures market, the SPI200’s down 6.
In economic news: NAB reports that its main measure of business conditions, in a survey of over 900 firms, dropped a point to 8 in the March quarter, still a robust result. Business confidence also fell a point to 17 during the period.
And according to the ABS, Australia’s first quarter final goods producer price index rose 1%.
In company news: Kerry Stokes’ proposed $3 billion merger between the Seven Network Ltd (ASX:SEV)and WesTrac has received court approval today. Last week Seven shareholders also gave the proposal to merge with the industrial equipment business, the green light. The merged company will be called Seven Group Holdings. Shares in the Seven Network rose 1.82% to $7.82.
Property developer and manager Lend Lease Group (ASX:LLC) has appointed four regional CEO’s as the company moves to a regional business structure from July 1, 2010. Rod Leaver has been appointed head of Lend Lease Australia, Eng-Peng Ooi will be CEO of Lend Lease Asia, Dan Labbard will be CEO of Lend Lease Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Bob McNamara will be CEO for Lend Lease Americas. All of the regional CEO’s will report to Lend Lease CEO Steve McCann, who says the regional structure aligns the business with the group’s integrated property solutions offering and demonstrates the depth and quality of the Lend Lease senior management team. Shares in Lend Lease fell 0.91% to $8.73.
Turning now to market indices: The best performing sector at midday is the Consumer Discretionary index, up 15 points to 1,666. Shares in APN News & Media rose 3.29% to $2.51. Shares in Billabong International and Wotif.com Holdings are also higher at noon.
The worst performing sector is the Health Care index, down 215 points to 8,450. Shares in CSL dropped 4.39% to $32.45, while shares in Acrux and ResMed are also lower.
Looking to New Zealand and the NZSX50 is 10 point lower. Taking a look at the top 4 stocks by turnover: Heading the list is Sky City Entertainment Group with stock down 0.62% at $3.20 followed by; Restaurant Brands NZ, Kiwi Income Property Trust and Auckland Airport.
To gold and the dollar: Gold is trading at US$1,156.85 an ounce and the Aussie dollar is trading at 92.7 US cents.
