Aussie shares look to open higher this morning, the futures pointing to a positive start, following Wall St lifting on its fifth consecutive day. US stocks responded well to last week’s economic stimulus, midterm elections and a better than expected jobs report.
In US economic news: On Friday, The Labor Department showed that the US created 151,000 jobs in October, much higher than was expected. While the unemployment rate was steady at 9.6 per cent.
On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 9 points higher at 11,444. The S&P 500 Index closed 5 points higher at 1,226 and the NASDAQ closed 2 points higher at 2,579.
European stocks were mixed: London’s FTSE up 13 points, Paris is steady and Frankfurt up 20.
To Asian markets, stocks were higher: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 341 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei was up 267 points and China’s Shanghai Composite up 43.
The Australian share market finished higher on Friday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 55 higher to 4,801 and on the futures market the SPI200 is up 18 points. Turning to currencies and the Aussie Dollar at 7:45AM was buying 1.015 US cents, 62.73 Pence Sterling, 82.56 Yen and 72.4 Euro cents.
In local economic news: Out today, the ANZ job advertisements series for October.
Company News: Shares in Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX:CBA) closed 0.53% lower at $48.88 on Friday. Amid rising consumer backlash, Commonwealth’s CEO Ralph Norris has defended the bank’s rate rise, hitching its mortgage rates by 45 basis points straight after the RBA’s rise last week. Speaking to The Age Mr Norris says it was a situation the bank had been stalling for many, many weeks, and a move he did not regret. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has responded to the public outcry by issuing her own defence against inaction, foreshadowing a package of measures to be released this week by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission that is expected to address unreasonable mortgage exit fees. Commonwealth improved its profit from $4.8 billion last year to $5.7 billion in the 2010 financial year.
Shares in Qantas Airways Ltd (ASX:QAN) slid 1.04% to closed at $2.86 at the end of last week. Following last week’s grounding of the airline’s fleet of Airbus A380 superjumbos, Qantas has discovered three more issues with the Rolls-Royce jet engines on its grounded fleet. It is now increasingly unlikely that the issue will be resolved in the 48 hours that CEO Alan Joyce first signalled, according to a Fairfax report. Qantas spokesperson Simon Rushton has not detailed the exact nature of the problems, nor if the engines are being looked at for the same matter. Rather, Mr Rushton has told the paper the issues might apply to different components and that the airline is taking an ultra-conservative approach to the investigation. Qantas posted a $116 million profit in the 2010 fiscal year, falling from a profit of $123 million the year before.
To ex-dividends: There are six companies going ex-dividend today, among them we have Macquarie Group with an 86 cent unfranked dividend and Westpac with a 74 cent fully franked dividend. Coming up tomorrow is CSR with a 3 cent fully franked dividend.
To commodities: and the price of gold is up US$14.60 to US$1397 an ounce for the December contract on Comex, silver is up US$0.71 to $26.75 and copper is up $0.04 at $3.95 a pound. The price of oil is up $0.36 to US$86.85 a barrel for December light crude in New York.
