The market is down 10. The SFE Futures were down 8 this morning.

Wall St. closed down 30. Dow was up 35 at best and down 134 at worst. Metals had a strong session in London with both Zinc and Nickel both up over 4%. The Gold price put on an impressive $14.90 to $1009 and the Oil price put on $3.90 to $70.61. The Aussie dollar has hit a 13 month high at 88.37c versus 87.12c.

In the news…

  • Street Talk was on the money this morning when it reported that Campbell Brothers (CPB) would undertake a 1-for-6 $196m fully underwritten rights issue. The issue price is at $22 a share, representing a 25.7% discount to the last closing price. CPB down 2% to 2900c.
  • Lynas Corp (LYC) has completed its institutional component of its capital raising. It has raised $285m via institutions and says it was heavily oversubscribed. LYC up 0.5c to 68c.
  • Telstra (TLS) have axed The Trading Post newspaper … another example of how the internet has changed the economics of the media sector. TLS unchanged at 327c.
  • Macquarie Group (MQG) has bought Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia, a specialist US based global investment bank for $149.19m. MQG down 1.5% to 5788c.
  • Felix Resources (FLX) announced it would demerge South Australian Coal and list on the ASX in 2010. Shareholders of FLX will be issued with shares in the unlisted South Aust. Coal on a one-for-one basis. FLX is subject to a $3.54bn takeover offer from Yanzhou Coal Mining. An Independent Experts report has also labeled Yanzhou’s takeover as fair and reasonable with FLX shareholders offered a cash payment of 1695c plus a $1 dividend and shares in FLX’s subsidiary SA Coal Ltd. FLX up 17c to 1732c.
  • China’s Yanzhou Coal says it is considering listing on the ASX Ltd.
  • Street Talk mentions a few companies that are likely to be takeover targets because of their lack of performance in the past 4 years. A few of the bigger ones mentioned include Alumina (AWC), Lend Lease (LLC), Perpetual (PPT), Suncorp (SUN), TABCORP Holdings (TAH) and Wesfarmers (WES).
  • Macquarie Airports (MAP) is proceeding with its 1-for-11 entitlement offer at 230c a share. MAP up 4c to 288c.
  • Integra Mining (IGR) in a trading halt. Last traded at 30c.
  • Platinum Australia (PLA) in a trading halt. Last traded at 88.5c.
  • Stocks hitting a fresh yearly high this morning: Aditya Birla (ABY) — up 123% in the past Q, Biota Holdings (BTA), Lion Nathan (LNN), Virgin Blue (VBA) and Crown (CWN).

The Dow Futures were down 7 at midday.

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

For a free 21-day obligation free trial of the MARCUS TODAY newsletter (and no we won’t ask for a credit card number) please START A FREE TRIAL — you will receive two daily emails about the stockmarket, our MORNING EMAIL with all the stuff you need to know ahead of the trading day ahead and a DAILY EMAIL with all the midday events, news, comments and Ideas from Marcus and his Team.

You will also be given a password to the MARCUS TODAY website including access to all the emails as well as Educational, Entertaining and Researched Articles from Marcus and his Team and an archive where you can catch up on a whole week or month in just a few minutes. Or Browse at length. We are sure you will enjoy and profit from what we offer.