The local share market looks set for a positive start this morning after Wall St closed the session higher overnight.
US stocks rallied on Wednesday following some positive quarterly earnings results from JPMorgan Chase and Intel who beat Wall St expectations.
CNN Money says investors also bet that the Federal Reserve would move to strengthen the economy and announce plans to start making large purchases of Treasury’s, a move called quantitative easing.
In economic news out of the US overnight: Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a 0.3% decline in US import prices for September following a rise of 0.6% in August. Export prices rose 0.6% in September following a 0.8% rise in August.
Looking at the figures, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 76 points higher at 11,096. The S&P 500 Index is up 8 at 1,178 and the NASDAQ closed 23 higher at 2,441.
European stocks were also higher: London’s FTSE up 86 points, Paris is up 79 and Frankfurt added 130.
Asian markets were stronger on Wednesday: Hong Kong Hang Seng up 336, Tokyo’s Nikkei is 15 points higher and China’s Shanghai Composite up 20.
The Australian share market finished flat on Wednesday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 2 points higher at 4,620 and on the futures market the SPI200 is up 30 points. Turning to currencies and the Aussie Dollar at 8:40AM was buying 99.04 US cents, 62.30 Pence Sterling, 81.01 Yen and 70.93 Euro cents.
To economic news: The Westpac/Melbourne Institute survey of consumer inflationary expectations, and the Westpac/Melbourne Institute survey of consumer unemployment expectations.
In company news: Shares in manganese miner OM Holdings Ltd (ASX:OMH) rose 2.41% to $1.70 on Wednesday. The company says a possible tie-up with Ukrainian miner Consolidated Minerals Ltd has collapsed. Back in April the two companies entered into a confidentiality agreement to investigate a possible transaction involving OM Holdings acquiring a stake in Consolidated Minerals Woodie Woodie manganese operation in the Pilbara of WA. OM Holdings says it completed due diligence on the Woodie Woodie mine but no formal transaction opportunity is being progressed due to difficulties indentifying a mutually suitable transaction structure. OM Holdings posted earnings of $18.57 million for the 6 months to June 30, 2010.
Shares in Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ASX:ERA) lost 6.43% to $13.53. The company says its earnings for 2010 are likely to be impacted by a downgrade in its production forecasts for the year. For the September quarter them miner produced 911 tonnes of uranium oxide, up 10 per cent from the June quarter but down 35 per cent on the September quarter of last year. The Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX:RIO) subsidiary says its full year forecast has been downwardly revised to 3,900 tonnes from 4,300 to 4,700 tonnes which means the company will fall short of its supply requirement by 5,000 tonnes. The company says it will cover this shortfall through purchases which will impact its bottom line. Energy Resources of Australia booked profit of $22.67 million for the half year to June 30, 2010.
To ex-dividends, and going today we have Ausdrill with a 6 cent fully franked dividend and TPG Telecom with a 2 cent fully franked dividend. Coming up tomorrow is Tidewater Investments.
To commodities: and the price of gold is up US$23.80 to US $1371 an ounce for the December contract on Comex, silver is up US$0.785 to $23.955 and copper is up just over 3 cents at $3.82 a pound.
The price of oil is up $1.34 to US$83.01 a barrel for November light crude in New York.
