Following a strong lead from Wall St overnight, the Australian share market is likely to open higher today.
US stocks rallied overnight driven by a surge in energy stocks as investor confidence returned following the previous session’s sell-off.
Positive economic reports also helped to lift investor sentiment on Wednesday. The National Association of Realtors pending home sales index rose 6% in April after rising 5.3% in March. Economists expected the index, which is a measure of sales contracts of existing homes, to rise 4.3%.
And outplacement firm Challenger Gray and Christmas said employers planned to cut 38,810 jobs in May, up 1.3% from April, however job cuts were 65% lower than the same time last year.
To the figures, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 226 points to close at 10,250 on Wednesday. The S&P500 Index is up 28 points at 1,098 and the NASDAQ gained 59 points to 2,281.
Now to European stocks; London’s FTSE lost 12 points, Paris declined 2 and Frankfurt is flat.
Asian markets were mixed yesterday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 25 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei fell 109 and China’s Shanghai Composite added 3.
The Australian share market closed lower on Wednesday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 32 points to 4,381 and on the futures market the SPI200 is up 81 points. Turning to currencies and the Aussie Dollar at 8:30AM was buying 84.12 US cents, 57.44 Pence Sterling, 77.61 Yen and 68.74 Euro cents.
In local economic news: The ABS is to release data on international trade in goods and services for April, and the Australian Industry Group/Commonwealth Bank Australian Performance of Services Index for May is also out today.
In company news around this morning: Shares in Pharmaceutical research company Novogen Ltd (ASX:NRT) plunged 53.16% to $0.185 yesterday. The company’s US subsidiary Marshall Edwards has announced that its ovarian cancer drug has been unsuccessful in showing any significant improvement in late-stage patients. Marshall Edwards CEO, Daniel Gold, says that while the company is disappointed, it is not entirely surprised by the final outcome, given that only 142 out of 340 patients were recruited to trial the drug. The company says it will now focus on investigations into another drug which it believes may be of benefit to women with ovarian cancer. Novogen has reported net losses for the last three financial years.
Shares in oil and gas explorer AED Oil Ltd (ASX:AED) advanced 11.22% to $0.545 on Wednesday. The company has announced that drilling operations at the Lukut-1 well in Brunei has intersected possible reservoirs. AED says it is very encouraged by these preliminary results and will carry out further tests on the well in coming days. The company says drilling at the Lukut-1 well is part of the initial commitment to an exploration strategy in Brunei. AED booked a $103.63 million loss in the 2009 financial year following a profit the previous year.
Checking ex-dividends, and while there are no companies going ex-dividend today, coming up tomorrow is National Australia Bank with a 74 cent fully franked dividend.
To commodities, and the price of gold fell $4.20 to US$1,220.60 an ounce for the June contract on Comex. Silver is down 24 cents at US$18.30 and copper fell 2 cents to US$3.03 a pound.
And the price of oil gained $0.28 to US$72.86 a barrel for July light crude in New York.
