Outlook: Aus shares set for another fall

Market Reports

The Australian share market is expected to open lower today, after Wall Street slipped again for the fifth straight day amid US debt uncertainty.

US economic news

The Labor Department revealed the number of Americans claiming jobless benefits hit a three-month low last week, dropping to 398,000. Contracts to buy existing homes rose in June though, by 2.4 per cent, slightly lifting hopes for the economy.  

Figures

On Thursday the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 62 points to close at 12,240, the S&P500 fell 4 points to 1,301 and the NASDAQ gained 1 point to close at 2,766.

European stocks were mixed, London’s FTSE closed 17 points higher, Paris was down 21 and Frankfurt was down 63 points. 

Asian stocks closed mixed, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 29, Tokyo Nikkei was down 146 and China’s Shanghai Composite was down 15 points.
 
The Australian share market sunk 1.62 per cent on Thursday: The S&P/ASX200 Index lost 74 points to close at 4,464. On the futures market the SPI is down 9 points.

Currencies

The Australian Dollar at 7:40AM was buying $1.0991 US cents, 67.21 Pence Sterling, 85.49 Yen and 76.79 Euro cents.

Company news

On Thursday shares in Atlas Iron Limited (ASX:AGO) fell 0.25 per cent, closing at $4.03. The iron ore miner reported a record 1.5 million tonnes of ore to port over the June quarter. It also used its quarterly report, released last night, as the chance to warn that the carbon tax has reduced the appetite of foreign investors and is a major concern. For the quarter, Atlas shipped 1.4 million tonnes of ore, an improvement on the 1.3 million shipped in the March quarter. In the first half of its 2011 financial year, Atlas Iron Limited (ASX:AGO) reported a net profit of $30.1 million.

Shares in News Corporation (ASX:NWS) slipped 0.87 per cent yesterday, closing at $14.87. The British Sky Broadcasting board held its first meeting since News Corporation’s phone hacking scandal yesterday, and unanimously supported James Murdoch to remain as chairman. BSkyB will announce today if the board will return capital to investors that were disappointed by News Corp’s failed bid for the 61 per cent of the satellite broadcaster that it doesn’t currently own. In the first half of its 2011 financial year News Corporation (ASX:NWS) posted a net profit of $1.46 billion.

Ex-dividends

Today Alcoa (ASX:AAI) and Cellnet Group (ASX:CLT) are going ex-dividend, with an unfranked dividend of 2.3 cents and a fully franked dividend of 2 cents, respectively. 

Commodities

Gold is down $1.70 to $US1,613 an ounce for the August contract on Comex, silver is down 77 cents to $39.79 for September and copper is up 2 cents at $4.47 a pound. Oil is up 4 cents at $97.44 a barrel for September light crude in New York.


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