The market is down 23. The SFE Futures were down 27 this morning.

Wall Street closed down 107 overnight with the S&P 500 down 1.15% after the Labor Day holiday. This follows last week’s 5.3% rise in four days. There was renewed concern surrounding European bank debt on a Wall St Journal article saying July’s bank stress tests understated debt issues. Germany also said its top ten banks will have to raise as much as €105bn to meet new capital requirements. Metals were down on the LME. The oil dropped $0.51 to $74.09 and Gold reached a new record high, up $8.20 to $1259.30. The AUD at 91.02c down from 91.59c yesterday.

Today’s main points…

  • Foster’s Group (FGL) up 4.61% after rejecting an indicative non-binding private equity $2.3bn-$2.7bn cash takeover offer for its wine business. The market cap of Fosters in total is $12.3bn.
  • Australian housing finance commitments rose 1.7% in July, seasonally adjusted, to 47,511. A 1% rise was forecast. Total housing finance, by value, rose 0.7% in July, to $20.854bn.
  • Wattyl (WYL) has requested a trading halt while its shareholders consider a $142m takeover offer from the Valspar Corporation at 167c per share. WYL last traded at 166c.
  • Leighton Holdings may announce its appointment of COO David Stewart as CEO as early as today. He will take over from Wal King who has held the position for 23 years. LEI down 25c to 3223.
  • Andean Resources (AND) down 7.39% after Eldorado Gold withdrew its bid for the company and ended any possible bidding war saying it couldn’t beat Goldcorp’s $3.45bn offer. AND is up 76.8% in the past month.
  • Potash Bid — Talk of China’s Sinochem approaching Singapore’s Temasek Holdings to discuss the possibility of creating a potential consortium to bid for Potash Corp. Potash is confident of attracting a higher offer of around $170 a share, $40 above BHP’s offer.
  • Mirabela Nickel (MBN) is seeking to raise $US135m through an institutional share placement. It intends to raise an additional $US7m through a share placement to directors and $US10m through a share purchase plan. They require the capital to help finance their Rita nickel mine in Brazil and to cover debt repayments. MBN remains in a trading halt.
  • OceanaGold (OGC) needs a new CEO after Paul Bibby resigned. OGC up 1.58%.

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