The market is up 46. The SFE Futures were up 40 this morning after an 89 point fall in the ASX 200 yesterday.

The Dow Jones closed up 38 overnight after 3 days of losses. Durable orders fell more than expected — the biggest fall since October 2010. Commodities were up with copper up 2.4%. The oil price was up $7.73 to $101.32. Gold up $3.40 to $1526.70. Aussie dollar is now at 105.91, up from 105.49c yesterday.

Today’s main stories…

  • Graincorp (GNC) H1 net profit up 66.4% from the prior H1 to $87.7m on higher grain harvesting volumes and revenues from storage and logistics, ports and trading. Lifted its FY earnings guidance to $310-340m, up from $275-310m, and for net profit to $145-165m, from $115-135m. Declared an interim dividend of 15c and a special dividend of 5c, both fully franked. The profit result was 20% above JB Were’s forecast. GNC up 7.5%.
  • Perpetual (PPT) expects underlying FY2011 net profit to be broadly in line with the previous year’s $73m. They expect to pay a final dividend of about 90c per share, fully franked. Say the 2nd half will reflect lower than expected inflows, a reduction in mortgage servicing and costs for outsourcing projects and senior management changes. PPT down 1.2%.
  • Asciano (AIO) expects its annual revenue to be cut by up to $8m and its operating profit by up to $4m due to industrial action. This will put just a small dent in previous EBIT guidance of $530m-$540m. Merrill Lynch cut their EBIT forecasts this week to $523m. AIO up 2.8%.
  • Fitch says that 30+ day mortgage delinquencies were higher than expected in Q1, reaching a record high of 1.79%, up from 0.42% in Q4 2010.
  • Austar United Communications (AUN) received a 152c a share takeover bid from Foxtel. Foxtel is 50% owned by Telstra (TLS) and 25% each by News Corp. (NWS) and Consolidated Media Holdings (CMJ).  The bid values Austar around $1.92bn. AUN up 8.3%.
  • Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) has decided not to go ahead with its previously announced US$1bn unsecured term loan facility because of weakness in credit market conditions. They said they held “significant” cash on hand and the decision didn’t affect its plans to expand annual production. FMG up 5c to 629c.
  • SA Premier Mike Rann said he was “hopeful” that government assessment of BHP Billiton’s (BHP) environmental impact statement on its $30bn expansion of the Olympic Dam copper/uranium/gold project would be completed by September. He also said that the negotiations with BHP had raised some issues but “but so far so good”. BHP up 67c to 4364c.
  • Aquila Resources (AQA) up 3.8% before being placed in a trading halt pending an announcement.

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