The market is up 10 points. The Dow Jones finished up 47 on low volume. It was up 61 at best and down 33 at worst.

The S&P 500 closed up seven to 1664 above its 50 day moving average.

July New Home sales came in worse than expected. The US Home Construction ETF fell 2.5%.

The US 10 year bond yield was down 8 basis points to 2.814% (recent high 2.9007%).

Microsoft up 7.3% on the announcement that the current CEO Steve Ballmer would retire within 12 months.

BHP was down 0.11% in the US on Friday. The stock closed in the US down 11c on the close here on Friday. RIO up 0.53% in the US.

The A$ is hovering over 90c at 90.28c down from $92.34c a week ago and up from a low of 89.32c on the back of the stronger than expected Chinese PMI number last week. The lowest the A$ has been in recent history was 88.48c on 5th August.

European markets up. Greece up 2.94%.

Oil price up 1.32%.

The Japanese market was up 2.21% on Friday.

The Chinese market was down 0.47% on Friday.

The iron ore price is up 90c to $138.60.

Metals mostly up but not by a lot. Copper up 0.56%.

US Economics tonight — Durable Goods.

US Economics on Friday: New Home Sales: Actual 394K, consensus 485K, prior 455K (revised down from 497K)

Gold price up $25c to $1395.80.

 Last week of the domestic results season. Main results (subject to error):

  • Mon: CNU, CTX, BLY, MTU, NWH, SKI
  • Tues: BBG, AWE, BPT, WHC, FLT, UXC
  • Wed: AGK, ASL, MTS, ROC, SBM, WOW, SVW, WTF
  • Thurs: BKL, PDN, PPT, QAN, RHC, WDC
  • Fri: IGO, TAP, VAH

RESULTS:

Chorus NZ (CNU) — Net profit of $NZ171 million up 67.6%. Revenue was $NZ1.057 billion up 72.4%. Final dividend of NZ15.5c. The company recorded 1.784 million fixed line connections.
Chorus is New Zealand’s telecommunications infrastructure operator involved in the construction of the government-sponsored Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) project, similar to the NBN here. High capital expenditure on the UFB project was the main drag on the result. Going forward the timeliness of the UFB is the key focus for the company. Chorus says work on the UFB project was ahead of schedule, with 3000 km of fibre deployed in 12 months. So far CNU had passed 153,000 premises, enabling 205,500 end users able to connect to the network. In total the UFB reached 229,633 premises as of June 30 this year with 301,238 users able to connect to it. Overall 18% is now complete with the network to be completed by 2019. The company said weaker earnings are expected because of the company’s high capital expenditure on the UFB.

Miclyn Express Offshore (MIO) — Net profit of $46.5 million down 18%. EBITDA of $84.7 million down 9%. Financial year 2014 looking positive with a number of long term contracts secured. Fleet expansion continues.

Boart Longyear (BLY) — Net loss of $US329.4 million compared with a profit of $US97.7 million last year. The loss comes on the back of deteriorating conditions similar to the GFC. Adjusted NPAT was $US28 million lower than expected. The company cut more than 2800 jobs this year and sold their environmental and infrastructure drilling services division. Impairment charges of $US298.3 million.  No interim dividend.

Caltex (CTX) — Interim profit down 13% to $171 million but above an expected $169 million. The fall was due to a drop in the Aussie dollar and a pipeline outage. Interim dividend of 17c.

M2 Telecommunications (MTU) — Net profit of $43.8 million up 33% which was in line. EBITDA up 80% to $108.1 million. Final dividend 10c.

Spark Infrastructure (SKI) — Underlying profit of $76 million down 21%. EBITDA up 10.7% to $702.9 million. Total revenue of 41.049 billion up 10.3%.

Nib Holdings (NHF) — Net profit of $67.2 million down slightly from $67.6 million but in line with expectations. Revenue up 15% to $1.32 billion. Their profit was affected by one-off costs relating to the acquisition of New Zealand health insurer TOWER. NHF is forecasting a profit of between $73 million-$80 million for the next financial year. Dividend 10c.

DWS — NPAT of $8.3 million down 7.48%. EBITDA was $24.32 million down 8%. Fully franked dividend of 5.5c.