The Australian share market has received a mostly positive lead from offshore trading with Wall Street closing higher and oil and precious metals prices firmer – copper was steady.
The Dow closed above 11,000 points after the US Central Bank said that economic activity is picking up the pace, which helped to ease some concerns about the latest European debt issue, which include the risk that Greece might not be able to pay back its debt.
The key economic news out of the US came with the Fed announcing it would keep interest rates steady, at an historic low near 0% for an extended period of time.
Looking closer at the scoreboard, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 53 points higher at 11,045. The S&P500 Index rose 8 points at 1,191 and the NASDAQ is steady at 2,472.
European stock markets closed weaker. London’s FTSE lost 17 points, Paris fell 58 points and Frankfurt dropped 75 points.
To our region now and Asian stocks were lower on Wednesday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 312 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei tumbled 289 points and China’s Shanghai Composite is down 8 points.
The Australian share market closed lower yesterday affected by credit ratings downgrades for Greece and Portugal and lower commodity prices. The S&P/ASX 200 Index dropped 57 points to 4,823 and on the futures market the SPI200 is up 7 points. On to currencies: the Aussie Dollar at 8:30AM was buying 92.49 US cents, 60.86 Pence Sterling, 86.95 Yen and 70.06 Euro cents.
To company news around this morning: ANZ Banking Group (ASX:ANZ) shares closed 1.27% lower yesterday at $24.85. ANZ has booked a 36% increase in its first-half net profit as provisions for bad and doubtful debts moderated. ANZ has revealed that its net profit rose to $1.93 billion for the six months to March 31 from $1.4 billion in the previous corresponding period. Cash earnings, the bank's preferred measure of profitability, gained 29 per cent to $2.3 billion. Customer deposits grew 2% while group lending levels were flat with growth in mortgages offset by lower demand by corporate and institutional clients. Australia's third biggest bank has benefitted from the recovery in Asia and Australia. ANZ’s 2009 net profit was $2.9 billion.
Telstra (ASX:TLS) shares closed 0.31% lower yesterday at $3.19. The Age newspaper is reporting that Telstra’s BigPond is being left behind as far as its customer service offering goes as rivals like Optus increase download limits without increasing prices. The move now puts BigPond as the most expensive high-usage broadband provider, at $100 dearer than market leader TPG for 200 gigabytes-per-month plans. Telstra doesn’t offer unlimited download plans, which are offered by rivals Optus, TPG and AAPT, and AAPT's plan is the only one that doesn’t slow down once 200 gigabytes of downloads is reached. A Telstra spokesperson told The Age that the company is continually monitoring the market to ensure it remains competitive and that it would adjust prices whenever necessary. But industry analysts say Telstra is lagging the competition and that the fixed broadband market in Australia has reached saturation, although the wireless market continues to grow. Telstra’s 2009 net profit was over $4 billion, which is an improvement on the year before.
To commodities: The price of gold gained $9.60 to US$1,171.30 an ounce for the April contract on Comex. Silver fell 1 cent to US$18.11 and copper is steady at US$3.37.
And finally the price of oil gained ending a two-day losing streak even after a government report said that crude supplies in the US continued to grow. The price is up 78 cents to US$83.22 a barrel for June light crude in New York.
