The market is down 21. The SFE Futures were up 43 this morning.

The Dow Jones closed up 178 overnight, up 219 at best. Greek Prime Minister Papandreou will meet with German and French leaders to discuss implementation of the bailout plan. The Greek government faces a vote of no confidence on Friday. If Papandreou loses, a general election will be called and there will most likely be no referendum. The FOMC decided to keep its target interest rate at 0-0.25%. The Fed lowered their GDP estimate and said they have avenues to stimulate the economy if need be (a hint at QE3). The oil price was unchanged at $92.51, Gold put on $17.80 at $1729.60 and Metals were mostly up overnight on the LME. The Aussie dollar improved slightly to 103.34c.

Main points:

  • ANZ Bank (ANZ) – FY Profit Result slightly below expectations – Announced a cash profit of $5.61bn, up 9.2% on last year but slightly below the $5.66bn analysts expected. They declared a final dividend of 76c, taking the total for the year to 140c, 11% higher than last year. ANZ down 20c to 2071c.
  • Most brokers have a Hold or Neutral recommendation on Westpac Bank (WBC) following their results yesterday. Only two brokers have a positive recommendation on the stock. Most brokers said the result was OK but not good enough to result in outperformance. WBC up 1c to 2153c.
  • Santos (STO) says their $US16bn gas export JV in QLD has completed over a third of the engineering and procurement for their LNG processing plant, meaning they are on track to ship their first cargo in 2015. STO down 2c to 1253c.
  • Boral (BLD) has held their AGM. Says it has been a tough start to the fiscal year with continued economic uncertainty in the US and a struggling Australian housing market. BLD down 6c to 362c.
  • Perpetual (PPT) has held their AGM. They told shareholders that underlying profit after tax for the first 6 months would be between $26m-$31m. Net fund flows were influenced by the volatile market. PPT down 35c to 2095c.
  • Country Road (CTY) says sales so far this year have been slow and they expect difficult trading conditions to carry on through to Christmas. CTY unchanged at 320c.
  • Brambles (BXB) has launched an aerospace division of its CHEP pallet business. The company said that CHEP Aerospace Solutions will consist of an independent network of pallets or containers for in-flight transport of cargo, baggage and mail, plus repair centres.
  • News Corp (NWS) doing OK today – up 41c to 1692c – after releasing their profit result which came in slightly ahead of market expectation. Net income for the quarter came in at $US738m, down from $US775m last year.

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