The Australian market looks to be headed for a steady start to the day, having received negative offshore leads. After lacklustre trading volumes Wall St ended in the red, investors remaining cautious in the wake of developments in the Middle East and Japan. The Australian dollar continued to rise, advancing to a 29 year high, reaching a record 103.15 US cents before easing back this morning.
In US economic news: The Commerce Department revealed that individual spending rose 0.7% in February, coming in above expectations. While, personal income lifted 0.3% in the month, in line with expectations. The National Association of Realtors showed pending home sales increased 2.1% in January, well above the forecast.
Wall St: The Dow Jones Industrial Average started the week 23 points lower closing at 12,198, S&P500 eased 4 points to close at 1,310 and the NASDAQ fell 12 points to close at 2,731.
European stocks ended mixed on Monday: London’s FTSE up 4 points, Paris up 5 and Frankfurt down 8.
To Asian markets and stocks were also mixed: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 90, Tokyo’s Nikkei was down 58 and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 6 points.
The Australian share market snapped a six day winning streak, with the S&P/ASX 200 Index slipping 9 points to close at 4,734 on Monday. While on the futures market the SPI is currently 4 points firmer.
Turning to currencies and the Australian Dollar at 8:40AM was buying $US1.024 cents, 64.05 Pence Sterling, 83.7 Yen and 72.73 Euro cents.
Company news: On Monday shares in ASX Ltd (ASX:ASX) eased 0.49 per cent to close at $34.83. The operator of the Australian Securities Exchange is considering granting small companies, especially small mining stocks exemptions from some ASX admission rules, according to the Australian Financial Review. The paper says the move is geared towards boosting competitiveness and luring inventors, as well as encouraging more initial public offerings from the booming resource sector. ASX is also reportedly considering extending trading hours to attract greater overseas investment. In the first half of its 2011 financial year, ASX generated a net profit of $172 million.
Yesterday shares in Centro Properties Group (ASX:CNP) fell 5.97 per cent to close at $0.063. Centro’s planned $9.5 billion sale of the Centro Group's US assets looks to be headed for some hurdles with shareholders threatening legal action because the proposed sale wasn’t put to a shareholder vote. ASX listing rules require shareholder approval for deals that result in significant change in the nature or scale of a company’s activities. According to Fairfax, Centro is understood to have informed the ASX that the relevant dollar value of the deal is around $600 million which Centro receives after the US shopping centre debt is repaid. For the half year ended on 31 December 2010 Centro Properties Group reported a net profit of $790 million.
Ex-dividends: Four companies are going ex-dividend today, Australian Masters Corporate Bond Fund No2 with a $0.90 fully franked dividend, AVJennings with a $0.01 fully franked dividend, Contango Capital Partners with a $0.02 cent fully franked dividend and Peet with a $0.04 fully franked dividend. Coming up tomorrow is ARB Corporation with a $0.10 fully franked dividend.
Commodities: Gold is down $6.30 to $US1,419 an ounce for the April contract on Comex, silver is up $0.04 to $37.09 for May and copper is down $0.07 at $4.35 a pound. Oil is down $1.42 at $103.98 a barrel for April light crude in New York.
