The Aussie share market continued its two-day dive, hitting as low as 5,846, a new 6 month-low earlier in the session. It comes as weak Wall Street leads continued with the Dow shedding 1,300 points in two days.
However, the local bourse is mustering up strength with four sectors, Tech, Materials, Health and Consumer Discretionary gaining, and we are somewhat recovering from the earlier losses on the broader index.
The S&P/ASX 200 index is 10 points or 0.2 per cent lower at 5874 at noon. On the futures market the SPI is 33 points lower.
Local economic newsHome loans fell 2.1 per cent in August, much further than the market expected it to fall (0.9 per cent).
Investment property lending fell 1.1 per cent month on month to August.
Broker moves Fortescue
(ASX:FMG) was upgraded to a buy by Shaw and Partners, with the broker saying amid the $500 million buy-back, coupled with the ‘best’ iron ore prices year to date ‘what’s not to like?’. Its price target, $5.60. Today it’s trading about 4.7 per cent higher at $3.94.
Citi issued an alert for BHP
(ASX:BHP) saying it expects a softer second half after a solid June quarter. It comes ahead of BHP issuing its first quarter FY19 production results on 17 October. Citi is expecting a decline in volumes for all key commodities, off a very solid forth quarter. It expected iron ore volumes to drop 9 per cent compared to the prior quarter. Its price target is $37.50. Today it’s trading 0.9 per cent higher at $33.69.
Company news $5.5 billion property and development manager, Centuria Capital
(ASX:CNI) increased its stake in Propertylink
(ASX:PLG) from 12.52 per cent to 13.85 per cent. It also announced on top of its $645 million Hines platform acquisition and $100 million capital raise, it has completed $80 million capital raise. NAB
(ASX:NAB) was the lead manager, Shaw and Partners were the co-manager. Centuria Group CEO John McBain says the company is overwhelmed by the level of public and debt markets, raising over $450 million across the Centuria platform. The manager announced just days ago, about it increasing its FY19 distribution and earnings guidance. It's trading 0.4 per cent lower at $1.30 at noon.
All this comes as Propertylink Group
(ASX:PLG) is allowing ESR Real Estate to conduct independent valuations of its portfolio after ESR made a $693 million takeover offer of PLG. Propertylink previously made a takeover offer to Centuria’s Industrial REIT
(ASX:CIP) which was rejected by Centuria. Propertylink Group
(ASX:PLG) last traded at $1.15.
IPOsTribeca Global Natural Resources Limited
(ASX:TGF) started trading today. It floated with an issue price of $2.50, opened at $2.51 and its trading at $2.50.
Best and worst performersThe best performing sector is materials adding 1.4 per cent, while the worst performing sector is telcos, shedding 2 per cent.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Afterpay
(ASX:APT), rising 9.5 per cent to $15.06 followed by shares in A2 Milk Company
(ASX:A2M) and Regis Resources
(ASX:RRL).
The worst performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Fairfax Media
(ASX:FXJ), dropping 13.2 per cent to $0.67, followed by shares in Nine Entertainment Co Holdings
(ASX:NEC) and Domain Holdings Australia
(ASX:DHG).
Asian markets Japan’s Nikkei has lost 0.4 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite are flat
Commodities and the dollar Gold is trading at US$1,221 an ounce.
Iron ore price rose 0.2 per cent to US$71.30. Its futures are pointing to a fall of 0.3 per cent.
One Australian dollar is buying 71.27 US cents.
CryptocurrenciesBitcoin has fallen 3 per cent to US$6,256, Ethereum has shed 11 per cent to US$190 and XRP has fallen about 12 per cent to US$0.39
