With major falls on Wall Street and in Europe overnight the Australian share market looks set to follow and open in the red today.
The selloff on Wall street comes just days after a major rally and while there are no key catalysts to the slide it follows broadly pessimistic sentiment over global growth forecasts.
The price of oil has continued its slide south overnight, while gold has pushed higher.
Global figures
Wall Street closed lower yesterday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost almost 2 per cent to close at 16,659, the S&P 500 lost 2 per cent to close at 1,928 and the NASDAQ lost 2 per cent as well to close at 4,378.
European markets closed mixed: London’s FTSE lost 0.7 per cent, Paris lost 0.4 per cent and Frankfurt is up 0.4 per cent.
Asian markets closed mixed : Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 0.8 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.2 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 0.3 per cent.
The Australian share market closed higher yesterday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 55 points up to finish at 5,297. On the futures market the SPI is 58 points down.
Turning to currencies and the Australian Dollar at 7:20AM was buying $US0.8784 cents, 54.5 Pence Sterling, 94.79 Yen and 69.24 Euro cents.
Economic news
Due out today from the Australian Bureau of Statistics is housing finance for August.
Company news
Phosphate company
CI Resources Limited (ASX:CII) has announced an off-market takeover offer for Phosphate Resources. The offer was described by the company as a merger on equivalent terms with CI already holding an interest of around 63 per cent in the target company. The company says the offer provides 40.3 CI shares, for every 1 share in Phosphate Resources. Shares in CI last traded at $0.87.
Fiji based Dome Gold Mines Limited
(ASX:DME) has appointed John McCarthy as Chief Executive Officer.
The gold explorer and developer says Mr McCarthy will take the role immediately and that the appointment follows the company’s merger with Magma Mines. Mr McCarthy is a geologist with 40 years experience in mining across a range of materials and locations. Shares in Dome last traded at $0.30
Commodities
Gold is up $19.30 to $US1,225 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. Silver is up $0.35 to $17.42 for December. Copper is up $0.26 at $3.03 a pound. Oil is down $1.54 at US$85.77 a barrel for November light crude in New York.
Ex-dividends
CPT Global Limited (ASX:CGO) paying 1.5c fully franked and TPG Telecom Limited (ASX:TPM) paying 4.75c fully franked.
