Outlook: Shares receive mixed lead from Wall St

Market Reports

The Australian share market is expected to open flat today after receiving a mixed lead from offshore trading overnight. US stocks fell after a sell-off in commodity prices hit resource shares and concerns about supermarket profits affected consumer stocks.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, closed 28 higher to 11,691. S&P500 is down 2 points to 1,270 and the NASDAQ is down 10 points to 2,681.

European stocks were mixed: London’s FTSE was up 114, Paris is up 15 and Frankfurt is down 14.

To Asian markets, stocks were higher: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 232, Tokyo’s Nikkei was up 169 and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 45.

The Australian share market finished flat on Tuesday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index lost 3 points to close at 4,743. On the futures market the SPI is up 3 points.

Currencies: The Aussie Dollar at 8:40am was buying just over $US1, 64.56 Pence Sterling, 82.53 Yen and 75.62 Euro cents.

Economic news: The Housing Industry Association is due to release its data on new home sales in November.

Company news: On Tuesday shares in Leighton Holdings Ltd (ASX:LEI) closed 1.2 per cent lower at $30.41. Spanish construction giant ACS has increased its share in Leighton’s parent company, Hochtief, to 30 per cent, taking a key step in its takeover bid. Yesterday, ACS said that under its takeover bid it has added 2.1 million shares to the 20.9 million it already controlled, giving the Spanish company control of 30.34 per cent. ACS says other shareholders still have between January 5 and January 18 to accept its latest offer to nine ACS shares for every five Hochtief shares. For the year ended 30 June 2010, Leighton reported a net profit of $615 million.

Yesterday, shares in UXC Ltd (ASX:UXC) closed 7.22 per cent lower at $0.45. IT service provider UXC’s new management has flagged intentions to sell off two of its underperforming business units in order to restore shareholder value in the company. UXC’s board has accepted a proposal by its newly-appointed managing director Cris Nicolli, who plans to divest its environmental services operations arm and its retail solutions business as soon as possible. UXC has also flagged operational losses and a $7 million write-down in its first-half results as a result of the divestment. For the year ended 30 June 2010, UXC reported a net loss of $2.8 million.

Ex-dividends: There are four companies going ex-dividend today which are iShares MSCI BRIC with a 2.97 cent unfranked dividend, iShares MSCI Emerging Markets with a 2.1 cent unfranked dividend, Programmed Maintenance Services Ltd with a 3 cent fully-franked dividend and SPDR S&P/ASX 200 Fund with a dividend amount to be advised.

Commodities: Gold is down $44.10 to $US1,378 an ounce for the February contract on Comex, silver is down $1.62 at $29.51 for March and copper is down $0.09 to $4.37 a pound and oil is down $2.17 at $89.38 a barrel for February light crude in New York.

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