The market is up 19. The SFE Futures were up 13 this morning.

Wall St. closed down 50 overnight. The Dow down 75 at worst. The ADP Employment report disappointed — a poor precursor to the main job numbers on Friday. The S&P 500 put on 4.9% in the past quarter, the best first quarter rally since 1998. Metals mixed on the LME, oil closed up 90c to $93.33 and Gold up $8 to $1105. The Aussie dollar down slightly to 91.75c.

Markets are shut tomorrow and Monday for the Easter break. US markets are closed on Friday although their bond market is open.

In the news today…

  • Lihir Gold Rejects Newcrest Takeover Offer – Newcrest has launched a takeover offer for Lihir this morning. They are offering 1 NCM share for every 9 LGL shares plus 22.54c cash, less any interim dividend declared for the half year. The offer values LGL at 387c a share ($9.2bn) — a 28% premium over yesterday’s closing price of 303c. LGL up 29.7% or 90c to 394c.
  • Bright Food Group has launched an improved and revised $1.75bn conditional offer for CSR’s Sugar and Renewable Energy business, Sucrogen. The offer is $250m more than the previous expression on interest. CSR management said they will hold discussions with Bright Foods. CSR up 6.65% to 176.5c on the back of the news.
  • Macarthur Coal received an “indicative, non-binding and highly conditional proposal” from Peabody Energy Corp yesterday afternoon. They are offering MCC shareholders $13 a share. The MCC board doesn’t endorse the offer saying it is not in their best interest. MCC up 4.7% to 1471c.
  • Sigma Pharmaceuticals (SIP) finally came out of their month long trading halt yesterday and closed down 48.3% to 47c from 90c. Their FY10 underlying profit fell 16% to $68m but the main issue was the non-cash impairment charge of $424m. Lower than expected earnings from the generics business did the damage. SIP opened at 40c; hit a low of 38c, then hit a high of 59c before losing steam and closing at 46.5c. SIP unchanged today.
  • Ten Network(TEN) — 1H profit result — Announced a net profit of $58.7m yesterday, in line with the $58.9m analysts had expected. TEN down 2.5c to 187.5c.
  • Rio Tinto (RIO) has received a binding offer from Sun European Partners to acquire the Alcan Beauty Packaging business. RIO up 109c to 7949c.
  • Australia’s trade deficit came in larger than expected — the balance in February was a deficit of $1.924bn. Economists expected $1.34bn.
  • Job vacancies in Australia increased by 18,300 or 13.7% from November 2009.

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

For a free 5 day obligation free trial of the MARCUS TODAY newsletter (and no we won’t ask for a credit card number) please Click Here 00 you will receive our renowned and popular Daily email about the stockmarket with all the stuff you need to know ahead of the trading day including overnight developments, news, comments, rumours, broker stuff and Ideas from Marcus and his Team. You will also be given a password to the MARCUS TODAY website including access to our Recommended Portfolio which is actively managed on behalf of subscribers.…no “set & forget”. Everything you need to effortlessly managed your own long term investment portfolio.

It includes an Income Portfolio. And for the traders we monitor short and medium term trades on top of the portfolio. Members also get access to our Database 00 all the numbers with comments on the ASX 200 stocks and more. Members also get access to our Educational section which includes an archive of Marcus’s Educational and Entertaining articles.  We are sure you will enjoy and profit from what we offer. Thousands of subscribers enjoy and profit from our services every day. We have one of the highest re-subscription rates in the financial newsletter industry.

For your FREE TRIAL — Click here

To Subscribe to MARCUS TODAY — Click Here

We also offer a FREE END OF DAY EMAIL — Click here — A free summary of the day in the market.

To buy MARCUS’S BOOK “Stock Market Secrets” — Click here