The market is down 24.  The SFE Futures were up 7 this morning.

The Dow Jones closed up 124 overnight to recover much of the previous two days’ losses of 168 points. Financials outperformed on optimistic comments from the Bank of America (up 4.7%) CEO saying the bank should be considered a growth stock prompting hopes of higher dividend payouts across the sector. The oil price fell 42c to $105.02 after Kuwait’s oil minister said OPEC members may hold talks about raising oil output. Gold fell $7.30 to $1427.20 and the Aussie dollar fell to 100.98c from 101.14c.

Today’s main stories…

  • Oz Minerals (OZL) has signed an agreement to purchase the Carrapateena copper-gold project in South Australia for US$250m. It is 250 kilometres southeast of OZL’s Prominent Hill mine. It is seen as a sensible growth option compared to paying top dollar bidding for listed copper stocks. OZL down 2.8%.
  • BHP Billiton (BHP) — There was research overnight out of the UK saying that UK fund managers are underweight the stock. Citi says additional buybacks have the potential to add a 4% return per annum on top of their current expectations. BHP down 1.3%.
  • Extract Resources (EXT) jumps again today as they make the headlines which say that the Chinese bid for their 43% shareholder Kalahari Minerals puts EXT in play. EXT was up 7.34% yesterday and another 7.1% today.
  • AXA Asia Pacific (AXA) is no longer trading. The scheme of arrangement to merge AMP and AXA is now effective and AXA is trading as AMPN — which is AMP with deferred settlement. It trades normal settlement on March 31.

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