The market is down 36. The SFE Futures were down 34 this morning.

Wall Street fell 87 overnight. It was breaking even up until the last hour where most of the damage was done. The Dow was up 55 at best and down 103 at worst. Metals were weaker in London and Gold continued its upward momentum putting on $5.30 to close at $1218.30. The Aussie dollar fell slightly to 92.49c from 92.53c yesterday morning.

A little quiet of the news front today…

  • There have been a whole lot of changes to S&P Indices that will take effect after December 18. No changes to the S&P/ASX 20 and 50. S&P/ASX 100 – Challenger Financial Services (CGF) IN – Viterra (VTA) OUT. S&P/ASX 200 – IN: Whitehaven Coal (WHC), Kagara (KZL), Mermaid Marine (MRM), Ardent Leisure (AAD), Carsales.com (CRZ) and Biota Holdings (BTA). OUT: Corporate Express (CXP), Nexus Energy (NXS), Molopo Energy (MPO), Astro Japan (AJA), AJ Lucas (AJL) and Eircom Holdings (ERC).
  • Origin Energy (ORG) announces it will acquire an interest in a diverse south-east Asian exploration portfolio. ORG unchanged at 1596c.
  • The ACCC has put a freeze on Telstra’s copper network prices. TLS down 2c to 347c.
  • China Petroleum & Chemical Corp has signed a deal to buy 2m tonnes of LNG (LNG) from the Papua New Guinea LNG project a year.
  • CFS Retail Property Trust (CFX) has to cut the book value of its property portfolio by 1%, or $75m, for the half year on weakening in capitalization rates. CFX down 1c to 188c.
  • ConnectEast Group (CEU) said a record monthly number of vehicles used the road in November, with the number jumping 20% to 169,530 daily trips. CEU up 0.5c to 40.5c.
  • Skilled Group (SKE) has released a Market Update — says analysts’ FY EBITDA forecast of $88m is unlikely to be reached. SKE down 34c or 15% to 188c.
  • Myer Ltd (MYR) forecasts “good but not great” Christmas sales. MYR down 1c to 381c.
  • Nufarm (NUF) has a good session yesterday after its CEO told shareholders he couldn’t mention whether other players had entered the takeover battle. He stands by $13 a share that Sinochem indicated it would pay. Credit Suisse says a possible formal bid for NUF “remains arguably the best event-driven deal across the industrials space”. NUF down 4c to 1081c.
  • Companies hitting a fresh yearly high today include Red Hill Iron (RHI), Indophil Resources (IRN) and Whitehaven Coal (WHC).

The Dow Futures are up 131