The market is up 13. The SFE Futures were up 16 this morning.

Wall Street closed up 45. The Dow was up 66 at best and down 1 at worst. The S&P 500 is up 73.4% from the March low last year. Low volume overnight. Greece managed to sell $5bn worth of bonds (but at a price) helping a rally in the Euro and fall in the US$. Commodities up. Oil price put on $2.32 to $82.46 and Gold up $6 to $1112c. The Aussie dollar up at 91.76c from 90.63c yesterday morning helped by RBA comments about the strong housing market raising the chances of further rate rises.

In the news today…

  • IRON ORE — BHP has officially announced that they are moving away from an annual iron ore contract pricing model with a number of customers to a quarterly system priced closer to spot prices. BHP up 57c to 4395c. Vale also appear to have agreed a 90% iron ore price increase with the Japanese according to the Japanese press.
  • A Chinese court has jailed RIO executive Stern Hu for 10 years for bribery and stealing commercial secrets and blamed him, along with three other executives, for the collapse of annual price negotiations last year. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says he doesn’t want the sentence to deter other companies from doing business in China. He also added the case won’t hurt relations between the two countries. RIO up 81c to 7970c. RIO have sacked the four.
  • A deal with AXA Asia Pacific (AXA) and National Australia Bank (NAB) looks imminent. Both stocks are in a trading halt today. The NAB may have struck a deal with AXA’s parent company, AXA SA, meaning all they need is the green light from the ACCC who will announce their decision on AMP’s $12.85bn bid on Thursday and NAB’s $13.29bn bid on April 22. AXA last traded at 635c, NAB at 2770c.
  • Nufarm (NUF) announced a $40m loss for the half year late yesterday but has reiterated their guidance for a seasonal recovery in the 2H. MD Doug Rathbone has sold 3 million shares. NUF down 3.9% to 934c.
  • Ramsay Health Care (RHC) reiterated FY profit guidance and said they completed their acquisition on a 57% stake in French private hospital operator Groupe Proclif. RHC down 8c to 1930c.
  • Gindalbie Metals (GBG) announced they have finalized a long term off-take contract with their JV partner, Ansteel, covering the life-of-mine production from the Kagara Iron Ore project in WA. GBG up 3c to 113c.
  • Street Talk says QBE Insurance (QBE) could be looking to get into the home and car insurance game. QBE down 18c to 2117c.
  • TAP Oil (TAP) in a trading halt pending an announcement. TAP last traded at 99c.
  • Lend Lease (LLC) completed their $806m equity raising. LLC up 12c to 884c.

The Dow Futures were down 5 at midday.

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