Not a good start to the week. The market is down 67. The SFE Futures were down 20 this morning.

Wall St. closed down 42 on Friday for the third straight session. The Dow was up 28 at best and down 66 at worst. European markets mixed UK FTSE up 0.06%, DAX (Germany) down 0.42%, CAC40 (France) down 0.51%. The Oil price closed up 26c to $66.02 but Gold fell $7.30 to $992. The Aussie dollar was up at 86.62. New home sales figures came in below expectations.

NUFARM (NUF) — TAKEOVER OFFER — Nufarm and SinoChem Corp have announced a heads of agreement in relation to a non-binding proposal for Sinochem to acquire all of the issued ordinary shares in NUF at $13. Not a complete surprise as NUF has been a potential takeover target for a while, ever since it received a bid in 2007, and it also announced that Sinochem were looking at its books around a month ago. NUF up 6.64% to 1188c.

In other news…

  • Karoon Gas (KAR) has continued to slide, down another 7.95% this morning to 729c after falling 4% of Friday. It has announced the second exploration well in its Browse Basin joint venture with ConocoPhillips has reached its total depth and will be plugged and abandoned.
  • Lend Lease Corp (LLC) has offered to buyout the stake in retirement village developer Lend Lease Primelife Group (LLP) that it doesn’t already own. It currently has a 43.2% stake and will pay 31c per staples security. LLC down 2.8% to 1044c and LLP up 20% to 29.5c.
  • The MYER IPO is expected to value the company at $3bn and is understood to involve a price range of around 390c — 490c. Street Talk says the offer is based on a PER multiple for 2010 of between 14x and 17.5x.
  • Nufarm receives takeover offer at $13 a share and announces its profit result.
  • According to The Australian, Macquarie Group (MQG) could pull out of the $345m deal to hand over management of Macquarie Airports (MAP). MAP up 4c to 287c.
  • Street Talk predicts capital raisings from both CSR Ltd (CSR) and Lynas Corp (LYC). CSR down 1.37% to 180c and LYC last traded at 90c.
  • Pan Pacific Petroleum (PPP) in a trading halt. Last traded at 57.5c.
  • RBA Governor Glenn Stevens has told Senate Committee that stimulus measures will need to be unwound at some point.
  • The Australian suggests the ANZ Bank could target AMP Ltd next as consolidation in the wealth management industry gets hotter. AMO down 5c to 613c.
  • Talk of Roger Corbett taking over Ron Walker as Chairman of Fairfax Media (FXJ). FXJ down 4c to 164.5c.

The Dow Futures are down 17 at midday.

MARCUS PADLEY is the author of the MARCUS TODAY Daily Stockmarket Newsletter.

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