The market is up 15. The SFE Futures were up 4 this morning.

The Dow Jones closed up 38 overnight after being up as much as 106  but fell from there to be down 42 on comments from Geithner that the US wouldn’t let the US$ weaken. There is a G20 meeting this weekend in Korea and a “currency war”is brewing. A number of companies reported better than expected earnings including EBay, McDonald’s, Caterpillar and Travelers Co. Initial unemployment claims fell more than expected. Gold was down $81.80 to $1325.60 and the oil price fell $0.74 to $81.80. The AUD fell 97.73c.

Today’s main points…

  • BHP Billiton held its AGM in London overnight. BHP Chairman Jac Nasser said the long term outlook remains strong but global recovery could still stall. BHP up 0.56%.
  • Woodside Petroleum (WPL) released 3rd Q production numbers. Produced 18.3m barrels of oil equivalent, down 11% on last year. Revenue up 15% on last year. WPL down 0.72%.
  • The ACCC says Australian banks signalling their intentions about interest rate movements are “bordering on conduct that could be treated as anticompetitive” and could be the subject of possible action. “There’s a constant problem when you’ve got competitors signalling to each other as well as signalling to the public what they intend to do with their prices, in the case of the banks, interest rates.”
  • CBA first quarter funds under management were up 4.4% to $151bn driven by flows into Global Equities and strong investment market returns.  CBA up 0.84%.
  • MAp Group (MAP) has had 3rd Q results — Sydney airport EBITDA up 14% in nine months. CEO Kerrie Mather said “Sydney Airport has delivered another outstanding result achieved through a combination of strong traffic growth, commercial expansion and solid cost management”. MAP up 1.69%.
  • ACCC says it will undertake a review of James Packer’s 18% purchase of Ten Network (TEN). Packer will receive a $20m cheque after TEN declared an unexpected special dividend on top of its final dividend. TEN up 0.64%.
  • Newcrest Mining (NCM) says it can extract an extra 9m ounces of Gold from its Lihir Island mine in PNG via a new operating methodology. NCM yesterday reported weaker-than-expected 1Q production. Citi has NCM at Overweight and both RBS and Morgan Stanley rate NCM as Hold. NCM down 0.9%.
  • Kalgoorlie’s Phoenix Gold has lodged a prospectus to raise up to $8m and float on the ASX.
  • QR National broker firm allocations have accounted for 20-25% of the expected total shares to be offered — there was a small scaleback on applications. It is a bit below best expectations for a 40% retail participation.

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