The market is up 21. Our futures were up 20 over the last two days. The Dow Jones finished up 25 on below average volume after falling 43 points on Thursday. The Dow was up 92 at best and down 11 at worst on strong company earnings and better than expected jobless numbers.

Weekly jobless claims were down from 355,000 to 339,000, historically the index improves over Easter.

The German press cited a confidential Bundesbank opinion paper, which strongly opposed the ECB’s implementation of Outright Monetary Transactions (quantitative easing).

The VIX (Volatility Index) was up 0.07%. Best sectors — consumer discretionary, materials, telecom. Worst sectors — healthcare, utilities.

European markets mixed — UK FTSE up 0.17%, German DAX up 0.95%, France down 0.06%, Spain down 0.29%, Italy up 0.52%.

Metals mixed — copper up 2.12%, nickel up 0.95%, zinc up 0.98%, aluminium up 1.66%. Spot iron ore was down 50c to $134.60. Gold up $42.90 to $1466.60. Gold was up $14.90 on Thursday.

BHP and RIO were up 0.51% and 0.82% in ADR form in the US with BHP closing at the equivalent of 3234c up 64c on Thursday’s close here.

  • GrainCorp (GNC) — Archer Daniels Midland (AMD) has commenced its well-flagged takeover bid for GrainCorp with the companies signing a takeover bid implementation deed. AMD says it has begun due dilligence on GrainCorp and subject to satisfactory completion of the process its board would unanimously recommend the takeover bid. ADM will pay 1220c per GrainCorp share in cash, plus an additional $1 dividend. GrainCorp has conditionally accepted the $2.8 billion takeover offer, four months after rejecting the price as too low. GNC is up 7.83% to 1280c.
  • Perhaps the most interesting theme in the market at the moment is still this idea that both BHP and RIO could follow in Woodside’s footsteps and increase their payout ratios. BHP currently has a payout ratio of 45% and RIO a payout ratio of 30%. If they raised them to 60% as some brokers suggest is possible then BHP would yield 6.8% and RIO 10.2% including franking and both of them would join the banks and Telstra as core income stocks for Australian investors. BHP is up 3.2% to 3271c. RIO is up 3.0%.
  • ResMed (RMD) — Down 2% initially after it announced record revenue and income for the quarter ended March 31, 2013. Revenue was $383.6 million, up 10%, net income was $84.9 million, up 31% and diluted earnings per share were 58c up 32%. Quarterly dividend of US17c. The company says it will soon launch new products, including two new sleep assistance masks. RMD is down 1.33% to 444c.
  • Leighton Holdings’ (LEI) — John Holland Group has won a $72 million reconstruction contract, to rebuild Brisbane’s iconic RiverWalk. LEI is up 0.43% to 1993.5c.