As we enter the final two weeks of trade for the year the Australian share market looks poised for a soft start with low trading volumes. Europe’s debt crisis continues to dominate headlines and dictate market movements. At the end of last week we heard ratings agency Moody’s had downgraded Belgium’s credit rating while Fitch put seven European countries on credit watch negative. Speculation is mounting Standard & Poor's could issue further downgrades after recently placing 15 members of the eurozone on review.
Figures
Wall Street finished mixed on Friday at the end of a week that saw all the major indexes each loose more than 2.5 per cent: On Friday the Dow Jones Industrial Average eased 2 points to close at 11,866, the S&P500 added 4 points to close at 1,220 and the Nasdaq gained 14 points to close at 2,555.
European markets finished lower on Friday: London’s FTSE was down 14 points, Paris was down 26 points and Frankfurt was down 29 points.
Asian markets closed higher on Friday: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 259 points, Tokyo Nikkei was up 24 and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 44 points.
The Australian share market snapped a three day losing streak on Friday to the day 0.5 per cent higher but 44 points down for the week. On Friday the S&P/ASX 200 Index added 19 points to finish at 4,159. On the futures market the SPI is currently 10 points lower.
Currencies
The Australian Dollar at 8:35AM was buying 99.96 US cents, 64.32 Pence Sterling, 77.79 Yen and 76.63 Euro cents.
Economic news
Due out today from the Australian Bureau of Statistics is international merchandise imports data for November.
Company news
Shares in Leighton Holdings Limited (ASX:LEI) closed steady at $19.70 on Friday. Leighton capped off a big week of $510 million in new contracts with two new announcements at the end of last week. Leighton's subsidiary John Holland has been awarded a $100 million Sydney Opera House project to build a new loading dock and upgrade the forecourt roadway. Leighton subsidiary Visionstream Australia Pty Ltd has announced it has been awarded a total of $250 million of work since July this year, including a NBN Co contract worth more than $19 million. In the 2011 financial year Leighton Holdings booked a net loss of $406 million.
Shares in Monadelphous Group Limited (ASX:MND) dropped 1.29 per cent at the end of last week, finishing at $19.12. The engineering group has been awarded a $70 million general services contract at the Chevron-operated Wheatstone liquefied natural gas project offshore Western Australia. Under the contract Monadelphous will provide construction, operational support and other services. Work is due to start in the first quarter of next year and to be completed by the end of 2013. In the 2011 financial year Monadelphous Group reported a record net profit of $95 million.
Ex-dividends
Only one company is going ex-dividend today and that is Skywest with a 0.94 cent unfranked dividend. Among those coming up later this week are Thorn Group, Ardent Leisure and Australian Education Trust.
Commodities
Gold is up $16.00 to $US1,597 an ounce for the February contract on Comex.
Silver is up $0.40 to $29.67 for March.
Copper is up $0.06 at $3.33 a pound.
Oil is down $0.34 at $93.53 a barrel for January light crude in New York.
