The Australian share market looks likely to plunge in to the red today, after Wall Street fell sharply on US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comment that a premature end to central bank stimulus would risk stalling the economic recovery.
Investors looked to Mr Bernanke's testimony for signs of when the Fed might begin pulling back on stimulus measures.
The Australian dollar dropped soon after the comments, despite the Fed chief making it clear that any policy changes would be dependent on significant signs of economic improvement, especially US jobs.
FNN spoke to John Noonan of Thomson Reuters, who says the Aussie dollar is unlikely to soar above parity any time soon.
Currencies
At 7:20AM the Aussie regained some of its overnight losses and is buying $US97.03 cents, 64.51 Pence Sterling, 100.06 Yen and 75.5 Euro cents.
Figures
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 80 points to close at 15,307, the S&P 500 was 14 points lower to close at 1,655 and the NASDAQ lost 39 points to close at 3,463.
London’s FTSE gained 36 points, Paris added 15 points and Frankfurt surged by 59 points.
Asian markets had a mixed session: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 105 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei added 246 and China’s Shanghai Composite fell by 2 points.
The Australian share market closed 0.3 per cent down yesterday, with financial stocks losing their steam. The S&P/ASX 200 index closed 15 points down to finish at 5,165.
On the futures market the SPI is 20 points lower.
Company news
Telstra Corporation Limited
(ASX:TLS) is expected to axe a significant number of jobs after announcing a raft of changes to its operational structure. The telco plans to divert its resources towards high-growth areas such as wireless, NBN and network services while cutting back on loss-making ventures, such as the Sensis directory business. About half of Telstra's 30,000 workers will be affected by the changes, which will be introduced between now and July 1, under the new structure. Shares in Telstra rose 0.19 per cent yesterday to close at $5.14.
Adelaide Brighton Limited
(ASX:ABC) expects net profit this year to be flat or slightly below last year’s levels, saying it’s been hit by weak demand and the carbon tax. The cement and lime manufacturer says the volume of cement sales are likely to be lower in 2013, given continued weakness in residential and non-residential building. Shares in Adelaide Brighton were 0.29 per cent higher at the close to $3.46.
Ex-dividend
SP AusNet
(ASX:SPN) will pay 4.1 cents per share partially franked.
Commodities
Gold is down $10.20 to $US1,367 an ounce for the June contract on Comex. Silver is up $0.02 to $22.47 for July. Copper is up $0.04 at $3.38 a pound. Oil is down $1.90 at $US94.28 a barrel for July light crude in New York.
