The Australian sharemarket looks set to open lower this morning after mixed leads from offshore trading overnight – with Wall Street finishing slightly higher, oil was up but precious metals and copper fell.
US Stocks seesawed throughout the session, as investors seemed to be optimistic, then pessimistic, affected by the euro's weakness, and supportive labour market data.
The latest jobs news found that new claims for unemployment fell to 453,000 last week from 463,000 the week before. But continuing claims, a measure of those receiving benefits for a week or more, rose to 4,666,000 from 4,635,000 the previous week.
In other economic news, a Commerce Department report showed that factory orders increased 1.2% in April, compared to a 1.7% increase in March.
And the Institute for Supply Management's services sector index for May held steady at 55.4, missing forecasts for a rise to 55.6. Any reading over 50 shows expansion in the sector.
To the figures, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 6 points to close at 10,255. The S&P500 Index is up 4 points at 1,103 and the NASDAQ gained 22 points to 2,303.
European stocks finished stronger; London’s FTSE gained 60 points, Paris rose 56 and Frankfurt is up 73.
Asian markets were mixed yesterday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 315 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 311 and China’s Shanghai Composite fell 19.
The Australian share market rallied yesterday putting an end to a three day losing streak. The S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 105 points to 4,486 and on the futures market the SPI200 is down 6 points. Turning to currencies and the Aussie Dollar at 8:15AM was buying 84.29 US cents, 57.66 Pence Sterling, 78.04 Yen and 69.29 Euro cents.
In company news around this morning:
Shares in Healthscope (ASX:HSP) closed slightly higher yesterday up 0.9% to $5.60. The Australian Financial Review reports that tensions are running high between Healthscope and the private equity consortium of The Carlyle Group, Blackstone Group and TPG after the group attempted to stop an auction for the hospital operator by blocking rivals from financing their offers. According to the newspaper, Healthscope threatened to stop the consortium from accessing financial data key to their bid unless they allowed lenders to work with rival bidders. Negotiations between the group and Healthscope chairperson Linda Nicholls led to an agreement where the consortium would limit the number of banks it exclusively worked with to eight. The private equity consortium is expected to be granted due diligence this weekend. Healthscope posted a $72 million net profit in 2009.
Shares in ANZ (ASX:ANZ) closed 2.99% higher yesterday to $22.75. ANZ Chief executive Mike Smith has warned that the federal government's proposed resources super profit tax could send international investment away from Australia as investors review their sovereign risk. The Australian newspaper reports Mr Smith said that uncertainty frightens capital in the global market, and that Australia needed to remain competitive amid concerns the uncertainty created by the tax would spread to other industries. Speaking in Shanghai Mr Smith has also denied reports that ANZ had made a multi-billion-dollar offer for a 51% interest in South Korea's KEB Bank to its private equity owner Loanstar, or was considering a merger with Standard Chartered Bank. ANZ recorded at $2.9 billion net profit in the year to September 30 2009.
Checking ex-dividends, National Australia Bank is going today with a 74 cent fully franked dividend. And looking further ahead Campbell Brothers is going ex-dividend on Monday.
To commodities, and the price of gold fell $12.30 to US$1,208.30 an ounce for the June contract on Comex. Silver is down 38 cents at US$17.92 and copper fell 9 cents to US$2.94 a pound.
And the price of oil gained $1.75 to US$74.61 a barrel for July light crude in New York.
