The Australian market looks poised for soft start to the day after Wall St fell back into the red on Tuesday after three days of gains. amid lingering uncertainty over Japanese recovery and tensions in Libya.
Turning to the US: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 18 points to close at 12,019, S&P500 eased 5 points to close at 1,294 and the NASDAQ lost 8 points to close at 2,684.
European stocks ended lower: London’s FTSE down 23 points, Paris down 12 and Frankfurt down 35.
Asian markets, stocks closed higher: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 173, Tokyo’s Nikkei was up 402 and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 10 points.
The Australian share market closed steady on Tuesday: The S&P/ASX 200 ended the day at 4,643. On the futures market the SPI is currently 9 points lower.
Turning to currencies and the Australian Dollar at 8:45AM was buying $US1.0108 cents, 61.76 Pence Sterling, 81.9 Yen and 71.19 Euro cents.
Company news: On Tuesday shares Foster’s Group Ltd (ASX:FGL) slipped 0.36 per cent to close at $5.51. Foster's Group has fought back in the supermarket price wars after learning that Coles and Woolworths Ltd (ASX:WOW) planned to sell beer well under cost. Fairfax media says Australia’s largest brewer has held back its drivers from delivering tens of thousands of VB, Carlton Draught and Pure Blonde slabs to Coles' First Choice and Woolworths' Dan Murphy's liquor stores. According to the report, the supply was slopped to protect brands from ''loss-leading'', after reports a slab that usually wholesales for $33 and retails for $38 was going to be sold for $28. Wesfarmers Ltd’s (ASX:WES) owned Coles and rival supermarket Woolworths control around half of the liquor distribution in Australia. For the half year ended on 31 December 2010 Foster's Group booked a net profit of $312 million.
Yesterday shares in BlueScope Steel Ltd (ASX:BSL) fell 1.77 per cent to close at $1.94. BlueScope’s chairman and Reserve Bank of Australia board member Graham Kraehe has labelled the Federal Government's carbon tax discussions with businesses as a “sham” and “appalling”. The Federal Government is planning to this year present its carbon price bill to parliament, proposed to start in July next year. Mr Kraehe says it is almost impossible to put a well-designed system in place in that time frame, and, believes alternativelya threshold test should be adopted so Australian energy intensive trade exposed industries would not join the proposed scheme until a significant number of international competitors take on similar taxes. In the half year to 31 December 2010, BlueScope Steel booked a net loss of $49.2 million.
Ex-dividends: Two companies are going ex-dividend today and they are G8 Education with a $0.01 unfranked dividend and Seek with a $0.07 fully franked dividend. Among those coming up tomorrow are OrotonGroup with a $0.22 fully franked dividend and The Reject Shop with a $0.23 fully franked dividend.
Commodities: Gold is up $1.20 to $US1,427 an ounce for the April contract on Comex, silver is up $0.27 to $36.27 for May and copper is up $0.03 at $4.31 a pound. Oil is up $1.67 at $104 a barrel for April light crude in New York.
