The market is down 33. The SFE Futures were down 3 this morning.

Wall St. closed down 9 on Friday. The Dow was up 50 at best and down 72 at worst. The S&P 500 is now down 12% from its April 23 high. US markets had their biggest weekly drop last week thanks to disappointing housing numbers and concerns about European growth. 3Q US GDP was also revised down to 2.7% from 3.0%. Oil price went up $2.35 to $78.86 (Tropical Storm in Gulf of Mexico), Gold put on $10.30 to $1256.20 and the Aussie dollar also went up — now at 87.38c.

There was a massive spike in the S&P/ASX 200 earlier this morning with the index shooting up 600 points to 5012 from 4425. Still trying to establish what happened.

In other news today…

  • Wattyl (WYL) has told investors to accept the $142m all cash takeover offer from The Valspar Corp in the absence of a superior bid. Valspar is offering 167c a share. WYL up 27% to 161c.
  • Front page of the AFR tells us Boral’s (BLD) new CEO Mark Selway is looking to divest struggling or loss making businesses under the Boral banner in an attempt to develop a more efficient manufacturing pipeline and expand into fast growing regions like Asia. BLD down 8c to 498c.
  • Talk is that Bright Food executives and CSR’s management cannot agree on a price for CSR’s sugar division. Bright Food want to cut their takeover offer from $1.75bn to $1.65bn after sugar prices fell from unusually high levels. FGL down 5c to 564c.
  • The number of stocks in uptrend in the ASX 300 fell by 27 to 194 on Friday. 52 stocks have moved into downtrend from uptrend in the last 3 days.
  • Bauxite Resources (BAU) down 17% to 17c after IMF Australia (IMF) announced they would fund claims that current and former shareholders may have against BAU.
  • Elders (ELD) up 5.5% to 38.5c after they announced they will focus on cost cutting and increasing revenue. ELD up 6.8% to 39c. They fell 55% last week.
  • Gindalbie Metals (GBG) announced their Karara Project will initially generate around $1bn worth of annual export revenues and eventually build revenues of around $3bn annually. GBG down 4c to 116.5c.
  • WorleyParsons (WOR) has been awarded a services contract for S11D Project with Vale in Brazil. WOR up 1.8% to 2221c
  • § Stocks hitting fresh 52 week lows include: Bendigo Mining (BDG), Crane Group (CRG), Icon Energy (ICN), Nufarm (NUF), Primary Health Care (PRY), Sims Metal Management (SGM), Toro Energy (TOE) and Transpacific Industries (TPI).

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