The Australian share market may be in for a flat start this morning following a mixed lead from Wall St overnight.
US stocks managed to stage a late comeback in a volatile session on Wall St overnight, with the Dow and S&P 500 rallying in afternoon trade to close higher.
Gains in financial and material stocks helped fuel the rally, however investors steered clear of big-cap tech shares as concerns for Europe’s debt woes continue.
According to CNN Money, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday night that he doesn’t expect the US economy to fall back into a recession again.
Mr Bernanke also commented that the initiatives by European leaders to contain the debt crisis are working.
To the figures, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 123 points to close at 9,940. The S&P500 Index is up 12 points at 1,062 and the NASDAQ lost 3 points to close at 2,171.
European stocks finished weaker; London’s FTSE lost 41 points, Paris is down 33 and Frankfurt declined 36 points.
Asian markets closed higher on Tuesday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is up 109, Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 17 and China’s Shanghai Composite is 2 points higher.
The Australian share market closed stronger on Tuesday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index added 55 points to finish at 4,381 and on the futures market the SPI200 is up 7 points. Turning to currencies and the Aussie Dollar at 8:40AM was buying 82.55 US cents, 57.14 Pence Sterling, 75.51 Yen and 68.96 Euro cents. In local economic news: The ABS is to release housing finance data for April today, and the Westpac/Melbourne Institute Survey of Consumer Sentiment is also out today.
In company news around this morning: Shares in global miner BHP Billiton Ltd (ASX:BHP) rose 1.31% to $37.02 yesterday. The miner has applied some more pressure for changes to be made to the Federal Government’s Resources Super Profits Tax after announcing a bigger resource estimate than expected at its Jansen potash project in Canada. BHP says the resource at the Jansen project totals around 3.37 billion tonnes, with first production scheduled for 2015. The project is an example of the miner’s opportunities for growth outside of Australia and the threat of the mining profits tax. According to the Australian Financial Review, BHP says Canada is a stable and supportive investment environment and the all-in-tax rate for this project will be globally competitive for potash. BHP’s financial year 2009 net profit came to $7.24 billion.
Shares in soft drink maker Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd (ASX:CCL) gained 2.5% to $11.48 on Tuesday. The company is reportedly planning to develop a dairy version of its Mother energy drink. A report in The Australian Financial Review says the company has confirmed it is developing the new milk based product but has denied speculation it will be called Mother’s Milk. The Fin Review reports a spokesperson for the company saying there are a range of innovations on the Mother energy brand which it is currently evaluating but that there is nothing due for release at the moment. Coca-Cola Amatil booked a profit of $449 million for the 2009 calendar year. Checking ex-dividends now, and going ex-dividend today is CSR with a 6 cent fully franked dividend. Coming up tomorrow is HGL and on Friday Count Financial and Tower are going ex-dividend.
To commodities, and the price of gold rose $4.70 to US$1,244 an ounce for the June contract on Comex. Silver is up 32 cents at US$18.47 and copper added a cent at US$2.77.
And the price of oil rose $0.55 to US$71.99 a barrel for July light crude in New York.
