The Australian share market looks set for a weaker start this morning following falls on Wall St overnight.
US stocks closed lower on Monday as concerns for the global economic outlook outweighed a greater than expected rise in home sales.
Financial stocks led the declines on Wall St on uncertainty surrounding the government’s financial overhaul plan and Europe’s debt crisis.
The National Association of Realtors says existing home sales jumped 7.6% in April to a rate of 5.77 million units. Economists expected a rise to 5.65 million units.
To the figures, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 127 points lower at 10,067. The S&P500 Index dropped 14 points to 1,074 and the NASDAQ lost 15 points to 2,214.
European stocks closed mixed. London’s FTSE up 7 points, Paris was flat and Frankfurt fell 24 points.
Asian markets also finished mixed on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 122 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 26 and China’s Shanghai Composite is up 90 points.
The Australian share market closed higher on Monday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index added 90 points to 4,395 and on the futures market the SPI200 is down 70 points. The Aussie Dollar at 8:45AM is buying 82.45 US cents, 57.25 Pence Sterling, 74.44 Yen and 66.78 Euro cents.
In local economic news: The Melbourne Institute Wages Report for the May quarter is due out today.
To company news around this morning: Shares in Downer EDI (ASX:DOW) lost 3.26% to $6.24 yesterday. A consortium including Downer has been placed on a final shortlist to build the Gold Coast’s $950 million light rail system. The consortium called GoldlinQ, has been selected for the shortlist alongside GC Connect, and a group called Move GC which includes Leighton Contractors and Macquarie. Downer says since February it has secured more than $1 billion of work and is in a preferred position on over $3.5 billion of projects. Downer EDI reported profit of $189.38 million for the 2009 financial year.
Shares in electrical retailer Harvey Norman Ltd (ASX:HVN) gained 2.7% to $3.42 on Monday. The company has jumped on the social networking craze of Twitter and Facebook in an effort to monitor customer feedback. According to a Fairfax report the retailer says it has a small team of staff who do nothing but monitor Facebook and Twitter. The report says Harvey Norman believes that consumer’s use of social media sites like these will influence the company’s technological investments. In fiscal 09 Harvey Norman booked a profit of $214.35 million, less than the fiscal year before.
Taking a quick look at ex-dividends, and while there are no companies going ex-dividend today, coming up tomorrow we have Orica and SP AusNet, and on Wednesday Over Fifty Group is going ex-dividend. To commodities, and the price of gold added $18.10 to US$1,193.80 an ounce for the May contract on Comex. Silver is up 35 cents at US$17.98 and copper rose 8.5 cents to US$3.14.
And the price of oil rose $0.17 to US$70.21 a barrel for July light crude in New York.
