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

Dow Jones down 17. The Dow was down 25 at worst and up 50 at best. With no major economic data released the Dow hit the intraday high at the start of the trade before drifting lower to the close. Over the week the Dow Jones and Nasdaq were down 0.1% while the S&P 500 was down 0.4%.

Futures and options contracts expired over Friday trading (the quadruple witching process) ahead of  the S&P’s usual quarterly index rebalancing. The World Trade Organisation expects world trade to grow by 2.5% for 2012 and 4.5% growth in 2013. The WTO had tipped 5.6% growth in 2013.

Best sectors — Telecoms (+0.5%) and Health Care (+0.5%). Worst sectors — Basic Materials (-0.5%) and Consumer Goods (-0.3%).

European markets mixed — UK FTSE down 0.03%, German DAX up 0.84%, France up 0.59%, Spain up 2.60%, Italy up 1.02% and Greece up 1.58%.Spanish 10 year bond yield down 1.1bpts to 5.76%. Italian 10 year bond yield up 6.1bpts to 5.05%.

Metals up — Copper up 0.17%, Nickel up 1.58%, Aluminum up 0.44% and Zinc was up 6.20%. Over the week metals were mixed with tin, aluminum and copper falling while other metals were up 2.2%. The spot iron ore price down $2.40 to $106.40.

  • Nufarm (NUF) — FY result in line with guidance, dividend cut disappoints – Net profit was $72.6m up from a loss of $49.5 million last year which included a write down. Underlying net profit of $115.4m fell within their guidance of $110-$116 million but the market may be disappointed by their 3c share dividend. Brokers were expecting an 11c payout. NUF is down 1.88% to 574c.
  • Senex Energy (SXY) — Net profit of $8.9m underpinned by a 248% increase in oil production from the Company’s Cooper Basin oil fields. Group revenue was $70.4m and EBITDA was $19.7m. SXY is down 2.94% to 66c.
  • NRW Holdings (NWH) — BHP has terminated part of a $120 million contract for upgrading work at an iron ore blending yard at Nelson Point. The cancellation of work will affect NRW and will result in approximately $75-$80m being removed from the total contract. NWH is down 4.27% to 224c.
  • Fortescue Metals (FMG) — Is considering the sale of a minority stake in their Chichester iron ore operations worth more than US$2 billion. Proceeds will be used to repay debt. Possible buyers include Canada’s Teck Resources and Glencore. FMG is down 1.39% to 356c.
  • Seven Group Holdings (SVW) has confirmed the sale of Engin to Eftel. Eftel Limited has acquired the business of Engin, a leading Voice over Internet Protocol (VOiP) network, including customer contracts and intellectual property for a total consideration of $9.1 million. SVW is down 3.67% to 722.5c.
  • Lynas Corp (LYC) — Despite their temporary government licence Malaysian protestors have made the TV over the weekend and are threatening to revoke the licence on a change of government.  LYC is down 1.43% to 86.25c.

For a five-day FREE TRIAL of the MARCUS TODAY newsletter click here. You will receive our renowned and popular daily email about the sharemarket with all the stuff you need to know ahead of the trading day including:

  • Overnight developments, news, comments, rumours, broker recommendations and ideas from Marcus and his team.
  • Our portfolio recommendations which is actively managed on behalf of subscribers … no “set and forget”. Everything you need to effortlessly manage your own long term investment portfolio.
  • Daily technical trading ideas and data, including daily scans of the ASX 300 for stocks changing trend.
  • Stock database — all the numbers with comments on the top 300 stocks and more.
  • Educational section — Marcus’ educational and entertaining articles.

Subscribe to MARCUS TODAY. We are sure you will enjoy and profit from what we offer … we have one of the highest re-subscription rates in the financial newsletter industry.