The Australian share market opened lower and rallied through the morning to stand at 0.1 per cent lower at noon. Nufarm
(ASX:NUF) shares rose in early trade after a $97.5 million share placement plan apparently offset the impact of a drought-related earnings downgrade. Shares in Downer EDI
(ASX:DOW) rose on reports that their partner in the Murra Warra Wind Farm in Victoria, Senvion has filed self-administration proceedings in Germany. Janus Henderson Group
(ASX:JHG), dropped almost 10 per cent and shares in Resolute Mining
(ASX:RSG) are also down. The Industrial sector is leading the way and the Materials sector trailing behind.
The S&P/ASX 200 index is 8 points down 6,804. On the futures market the SPI is 0.2 per cent higher.
Local economic newsThe import price index rose 0.9 per cent this quarter and rose 2.8 per cent over the last twelve months, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Taking a look at the Performance of manufacturing from AiG the manufacturing sector moved back into expansion territory in July, with an Index score of 51.3. That’s up from 49.4 in June.
And there are early signs of a market recovery with price growth in positive territory for a second month in a row in both Sydney and Melbourne. Five of the eight capital cities recorded a subtle increase in property values over July, with an incremental rise of 0.2 per cent in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, 0.3 per cent in Hobart and 0.4 per cent in Darwin, according to CoreLogic's latest dwelling prices for July index.
Company newsDicker Data
(ASX:DDR) has been appointed as a distributor for Nutanix for the Australian and New Zealand markets. Nutanix is cloud computing software company based in the US. The agreement will see the two parties work together to provide enterprise customers with more simplified and convenient cloud management services and applications. Dicker Data have already delivered a number of Nutanix hyperconverged solutions on Intel Datacentre Block hardware. Shares in Dicker Data
(ASX:DDR) are trading 5.4 per cent lower at $6.35.
Best and worst performersThe best-performing sector is the Industrial sector, adding 0.5 per cent, while the worst performing sector is Material sector, shedding 1.3 per cent.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Nufarm
(ASX:NUF), rising 4.3 per cent to $5.09, followed by shares in Estia Health
(ASX:EHE) and Mineral Resources
(ASX:MIN).
The worst performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Janus Henderson Group
(ASX:JHG), dropping 9.5 per cent to $28.78, followed by shares in Resolute Mining
(ASX:RSG) and Northern Star Resources
(ASX:NST).
Asian marketsJapan’s Nikkei has added 0.04 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has shed 0.3 per cent and the Shanghai Composite has lost 0.4 per cent.
Commodities and the dollar Gold is trading at US$1,410 an ounce.
Iron ore price fell 2.1 per cent to US$117.15
Iron ore futures are pointing to a fall of 2.1 per cent.
One Australian dollar is buying 68.51 US cents.
