The market is up 28. The SFE Futures were up 16 this morning.

Wall St. closed up 4 on Friday. The Dow up 32 at best and down 49 at worst on low volumes. It finished up 2.8% for the month. 4th Quarter GDP number was revised up from 5.7% to 5.9%. January existing home sales fell 7.2% for the month. Metals had a good session — Copper up on the earthquake in Chile. Gold put on $10 to $1118 and the Aussie dollar increased to 89.75c.

In the news today…

  • Sigma Pharmaceuticals (SIP) — 2 Day Trading Halt pending the release of their revised earnings guidance. Another earnings downgrade expected. SIP last traded at 90c.
  • End of the results season in Australia – 48% of results this season were ahead of expectations (pretty normal). 20% worse than expected.
  • RBA Meeting tomorrow – 50 50 chance of a rate rise. Last week’s capital expenditure numbers lean towards a rise. 12 out of 19 economists expect one.
  • Fairfax Media (FXJ) has denied talk they will sell their 7 capital-city radio stations. FXJ CEO says he wants to keep those assets for the long haul. FXJ last traded at 165c.
  • Rio Tinto (RIO) has upped its stake in Ivanhoe Mines by 2.7% worth $244.7m to 22.4%. RIO up 1.08% to 7126c.
  • Positive response from brokers this morning after ANZ Bank’s (ANZ) trading update on Friday. ANZ up another 1.6% today to 2351c after putting on 4% on Friday.
  • Lend Lease (LLC) has raised around $434m after institutional investors subscribed for around 87% of their entitlement under its $806m capital raising at 770c. LLC down 2.27% to 913c.
  • Extract Resources (EXT) appoints Jonathan Leslie as their new CEO. EXT up 2.3% to 742c. Street Talk says West Australian Newspapers (WAN) could launch a bid for APN News and Media (APN) once the Seven-WesTrac merger is complete. WAN up 10c to 749c and APN up 2c to 231c.
  • Australia’s net foreign debt increase by 2% to $647.9bn in the Dec Q, down from $633.72bn in the previous quarter.
  • Companies hitting fresh yearly highs include: Seven Network (SEV), Ramsay Health Care (RHC), SMS Management (SMX) and Snowball Group (SNO).

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