The Australian share market is set to open flat this morning after local stocks wiped off more than $30 billion yesterday, the worst fall in a year.
In US economic news: The number of Americans filing for their first week of unemployment benefits stayed above 400,000 for the eighth week, last week.
To the figures: On Thursday, The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 42 points to close at 12,249, the S&P500 fell 2 points to close at 1,313 and the NASDAQ gained 4 points to close at 2,773.
European stocks were lower: London’s FTSE down 81 points, Paris down 75 and Frankfurt was down 143 points.
To Asian markets and stocks were lower: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 373, Tokyo's Nikkei was fell 165 and China’s Shanghai Composite down 38.
The Australian share market fell on Thursday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index plummeted 107 points to close at 4,600. On the futures market the SPI is 2 points lower.
Turning to currencies and the Australian Dollar at 7:20AM was buying $1.0673 US cents, 65.19 Pence Sterling, 86.34 Yen and 73.67 Euro cents.
Looking at company news: Yesterday shares in Qantas Airways Ltd (ASX:QAN) fell 0.95 per cent to close at $2.09. Qantas is planning staff cuts, offering voluntary redundancies to all 7,000 cabin crew. Chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline is suffering because of high oil and fuel prices, as well as natural disasters. The airline also intends on cutting flights. For the half year ended on 31 December 2010 Qantas reported a net profit of $239 million.
On Thursday shares in Fairfax Media Ltd (ASX:FXJ) ended the day 2.34 per cent lower at $1.04. Fairfax advertising director and sales veteran Guy Johnson is set to leave the publisher at the end of this month due to restructuring of the Metro Media sales team. The company is merging the digital, magazine and newspaper sales teams, with digital staff being promoted. More retrenchments are expected this month. For the half year ended December, 2010, Fairfax Media reported a net profit of $173 million.
Now to ex-dividends: There aren’t any companies going ex-dividend today, but there are two coming up on Monday, they are Campbell Brothers and Longreach Group and CSR is coming up on Tuesday.
To commodities: Gold is down $10.50 to $US1,532 an ounce for the August contract on Comex, silver is down $1.49 to $36.20 for July and copper is down $0.02 at $4.08 a pound. Oil is up $0.11 at $100.40 a barrel for July light crude in New York.
