The market is up 98. The SFE Futures were up 85 this morning.

Wall Street closed up 274. The Dow was up 283 at best and down 7 at worst. The Dow Jones is over 10,000 for the first time this month. First rise in eight days. European banks being stress tested appears to be the main driver (see below).

There is also talk of “value” in the market with the S&P 500 on 12.5x — last time it was there was in March 2009, bottom of the market and that the market is “oversold“. The oil price bounced $2.09 to $74.07 and Gold put on $3.80 to $1198.90. The Aussie continued to rise since the RBA left rates on hold at 4.5% this week — now over 87c, up from 85.18c yesterday morning.

Main news…

  • Financials and Resources leading the way. All major banks are up over 3% and both BHP and RIO up over 2%.
  • The unemployment rate has come in at 5.1% in June, unchanged from last month. The number of people employed increased by a higher than expected 45,900 (expected +15,000). The A$ has hit 87c on the news.
  • Minara Resources (MRE) put on close to 10% yesterday after announcing late afternoon a proposal to return $111m back to shareholders due to their strong balance sheet. MRE has cash reserves of $363m and is planning on returning 9.5c a share. MRE up another 2.8% today to 73c.
  • Orica (ORI) shareholders, as expected, have voted in favour of spinning off the DuluxGroup consumer business leaving the focus on their core business. ORI shareholders will receive one DLX share for every ORI share they own. DuluxGroup will start trading on Monday. ORI up 2.18% to 2577c.
  • CSR Ltd (CSR) will consider returning capital from the $1.75bn sale of their sugar and renewable energy business to shareholders. MD Jeremy Sutcliffe expects shareholders to support the sale. CSR up 0.5c to 172.5c.
  • The Australian tells us Sigma Pharmaceuticals (SIP) is likely to reject the lower takeover offer from Aspen Pharmacare. SIP down 0.5c to 44.5c.
  • The ACCC has suspended the date for a ruling on BHP and RIO’s planned iron ore JV. They were going to release their findings on July 22, but suspended the decision “at the request of the joint venture parties to allow them to make additional submissions”. BHP up 2% to 3817c and RIO up 2.28% to 6734c.
  • Lend Lease (LLC) has reached an agreement with London council authorities over their £1.5bn urban regeneration project in the Elephant & Castle inner city suburb. LLC up 2.19% to 746c.
  • Harvey Norman (HVN) has completed the purchase of assets from the bankrupt Clive Peeters. HVN up 4% to 359c.
  • Carrick Gold (CRK) is the only stock hitting fresh 52 week low today.

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 – 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 – 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.