Our market is up 31. The SFE Futures were down 11 this morning.

Wall Street closed up 10 on Friday. The Dow was up 30 at best and down 167 at one point, down to 9,835 but somehow miraculously managed to rally to close up at 10,010 … still above 10,000. The unemployment rate came in better than expected falling to 9.7% from 10%. Gold fell another $9 to $1054 and Oil dropped $1.55 to $71.73. The A$ up small to 86.83c.

Making the news today…

  • The Banks down marginally this morning as the government announce the removal of the government guarantee on wholesale funding introduced in October 2008 post the collapse of Lehman Bros. It will end on March 31st. The guarantee of bank deposits (the $1m guarantee) remains until October.
  • JB Hi-Fi (JBH) — down 4.8% to 1912c — despite announcing a slightly better-than-expected 1H profit result. 1H net profit came in at $76m, up 23% on last year. (Analysts expected $74.6m). They declared a fully franked dividend of 33c, up 120%, giving it a yield of 3.2%. The reason it is down is the announcement that the CEO is resigning in June.
  • Western Areas (WSA) up 3.2% to 419c — on a profit guidance upgrade.
  • AMP Ltd (AMP) says they are considering their takeover stance on AXA Asia Pacific (AXA) now that their exclusivity agreement with AXA’s parent company has ceased. The NAB has reportedly sent a negotiating team to Paris to begin formal work on the $14.2bn takeover of AXA. France’s AXA SA owns 53.9% of AXA. AMP up 11c to 626c.
  • Wotif.com (WTF) is eyeing off India as their next high-growth market for online accommodation. WTF sells accommodation in 55 countries and currently sells 150 properties in India at the moment. Travel companies (Flight Centre — up 187.5%, Webjet.com — up 92.7% and Wotif.com — up 99.6%) have all basically doubled in the past year. WTF down 10c today to 643c.
  • Extract Resource (EXT) has been approached by several institutions requesting to participate in the funding of its planned Rossing South mine. EXT down 9c to 721c.
  • Incitec Pivot (IPL) plans to restart work on their $935m ammonium nitrate plant at Moranbah in May.
  • Molopo (MPO) up 8.5% to 121c after providing an update on its Canadian oil projects.
  • Ten Network (TEN) up 17c or 11.2% to 168c on news that the Australian government is going to offer license fee rebates to TV broadcasters of 33% in 2010 and 50% in 2011 to help boost Australian content on commercial television and to “ensure that commercial broadcasters can continue to invest in new Australian content.” SEV up 2% first thing as well.
  • Melbourne IT (MLB) has hit a fresh yearly low today.

The Dow Futures were up 13 at midday.