The market is up 15. The SFE Futures were up 41 this morning.

Wall Street closed up 75 overnight. The S&P 500 turned around a 1.3% loss during the session to close up 1.1% on mixed results reports and talk that the Federal Reserve was going to announce it would stop paying 0.25% interest on reserves so encouraging the use of the money markets. The Aussie dollar improved to 88.29c from 86.86c on the back of a 2.1% jump in the Chinese stockmarket yesterday. It is up 9% since July 2. Gold was up $9.80 to $1191.70 and the Oil price put on 90c to $77.44.

In other news…

  • Resources outperforming — News out of China is that they will ease policies designed to prevent property speculation and that domestic consumption was expanding at a reasonably fast pace.
  • BHP Billiton (BHP) released their 4th Q production numbers this morning. Their iron ore and petroleum division both achieved record annual production. Iron ore achieved its 10th straight annual production record. The numbers look OK and most are either in line with broker forecasts or slightly exceed them. BHP up 1.54% to 3889c and RIO up 2.41% to 6811c.
  • Woolworths (WOW) down 2% to 2615c after releasing their FY sales numbers. The figure came in at $34.68bn, up 4.2% on last year, consistent with guidance, but analysts are concerned that it has gone ex growth. Like-for-like sales growth was only slightly higher at 1.8%. Big W sales were the big disappointment down 9.3% for the quarter and down 1.7% on last year.
  • Paladin Energy (PDN) has made a $27m off-market share-based bid for NGM Resources (NGM). PDN down 3c to 355c and NGM is up 55.9% to 14.5c.
  • Bendigo Mining (BDG) in a Trading Halt. Last traded at 20c — they have received a merger proposal.
  • Andean Resources (AND) continues to hit fresh all time highs – up nearly 7% to 374c after the company yesterday described the latest drilling intercepts at its Cerro Negro project in Argentina as “truly spectacular”.
  • Chevron has signed two 20 year deals with Korea Gas Corp worth around $19bn. They will provide 1.5m tonnes of LNG a year and Korea Gas will take a 5% equity stake in Chevron’s Wheatstone project in WA.
  • AXA Asia Pacific (AXA) expects to announce a 1st net profit of $220m, down 19% on last year due to deterioration in value of their investments.
  • Current Economic Activity grew at an annualized rate of 3.7% in May compared to grow of 3.3% in April.
  • Stock hitting fresh yearly lows today include: AWE Ltd (AWE). Stocks hitting fresh highs include Amcor (AMC) and Andean Resources (AND).

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