The Australian sharemarket is expected to open lower this morning, after US stocks ended last week in the red, buoyed by global worries of a renewed slowdown in light of disappointing company news and a stronger dollar.
In US economic news, the Federal Reserve has issued a bullish statement, saying the nation's economic recovery is getting stronger, but inflation remains in check. The Fed said it will remain on its current course of pumping more cash into the economy.
To the figures, on Friday the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 100 points lower at 12,596. The S&P500 lost 11 points to close at 1,338 and the NASDAQ lost 35 points to close at 2,828.
European stocks ended the week lower. London was down 19, Paris was down 4 and Frankfurt down 41.
To Asian markets and stocks were mixed: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 203, Tokyo Nikkei was down 68 and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 27 points.
On Friday the Australian share market ended the week slightly higher. The S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 15 points to close at 4,711. While on the futures market the SPI is currently down 35 points.
The Australian Dollar at 7.40AM was buying $1.05.78 US cents, 65.34 Pence Sterling, 85.52 Yen and 75.13 Euro cents.
In economic news, The Australian Bureau of Statistics will today release the housing finance figures for March, and the new motor vehicles sales for April.
Looking at company news: on Friday shares in Qantas (ASX:QAN) were steady to close at $2.12. The airline has been penalised by the European Union, for Australia’s failure to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. Because of new changes to the European Union’s emissions trading scheme, Qantas will have to raise international airfares to Europe from January next year, with an increased tax of 15 per cent on carbon emissions from its nearest port of call. For the half year ended on December 31, 2010 Qantas reported a net profit of $239 million.
At the end of last week shares in Toll Holdings Limited (ASX:TOL) lost 0.36 per cent to close at $5.50. The transport and logistics provider has confirmed it has a shortlist of four candidates to become its new chief executive. The company’s chairman, Ray Horsburgh, told the Australian newspaper he was "going to pains", to explain to the shortlist that outgoing CEO and founder of Toll, Paul Little, will be returning after a break to be a non-executive director. The company has recently spent $1 billion buying eight forwarding companies in the past three years as part of its acquisition strategy. For the first half of the 2011 financial year, Toll Holdings reported a net profit of $175.1 million.
Three companies are going ex-dividend today and they are BT Investment Management with a fully franked dividend of $0.06, Telecom NZ with an unfranked dividend of $0.026 cents, and Westpac with a fully franked dividend of $0.76.
Gold is down $10.10 to $US1,493 an ounce for the June contract on Comex, silver is down $1.85 to $35.01 for July and copper is up $0.03 at $3.98 a pound. Oil is up $0.68 at $99.65 a barrel for June light crude in New York.
