Despite positive offshore leads, the Australian share market has sunk over 1 per cent at noon. A strong Australian dollar has weighed on the market. Concerns over the impact on exports has hit the miners, falling to the worst performers along with energy stocks.
The S&P/ASX200 index has fallen 60 points and is 4,813 at noon. On the futures market the SPI is 62 point lower.
Economic news: RP Data-Rismark has revealed that capital city home prices continued to fall in March, recording the biggest fall in over a decade. In the March quarter national city homes prices sank 2.1 per cent, pulled down by falls in Brisbane, Perth and Darwin.
Company news: Australia’s largest brewer, Foster's Group Ltd (ASX:FGL), will split its beer and wine businesses after an overwhelming amount of shareholders voted in favor of the $11 billion demerger. 98.6 per cent of proxy votes have approved the proposed scheme of arrangement, with a mere 0.3 per cent voting against it. The split will see Foster’s wine division, Treasury Wine Estates, spun off into a separately listed company, with Foster’s shareholder’s receiving one Treasury Wine Estates share for every three Foster’s shares they hold. Shares in Foster's Group last traded at $5.75 before entering into a trading halt.
Shares in Extract Resources Ltd (ASX:EXT) have fallen, weighed down by uncertainty surrounding reports that the Namibian government is planning to allocate all mining and exploration rights to a state-owned company. Responding to a price query from the Australian Securities Exchange, the uranium explorer says it will seek clarity from the Namibian government regarding recent comments from government officials. Extract maintains that the comments have been taken out of context and the Namibian government continues to support the company and its Husab Uranium Project. Shares in Extract Resources have fallen 3.83 per cent and are trading at $7.28 at noon.
Best and worst performers, most are trading in the red: The best performing sector is Telco Services, steady at 988 points. Shares in Enerji have improved 5 per cent and trading at $0.021. Shares in Amcom Telecommunications are in positive territory while shares in Hutchison Telecommunications are flat at noon. The worst performing sector is Energy slumped 280 points to 16,635. Shares in Beach Energy have fallen 5.42 per cent and trading at $0.96. Shares in Petsec and Aquila Resources are also lower at noon.
New Zealand: The NZSX50 is 4 points higher. Taking a look at the top four stocks by turnover, Fletcher Building is at the top of the list with stock up 0.87 per cent at $9.24 followed by Westpac, Telecom Corporation of New Zealand and AMP.
Gold and the dollar: Gold is trading at $US1,534 an ounce and the Aussie dollar is buying $US1.09 cents.
