The market is down 24. The SFE Futures were down 24 this morning.

Wall St. closed down 72 overnight. Biggest drop in the market in a month. The Dow was down 7 at best and down 124 at worst. Consumer credit numbers came in weaker than expected and Ben Bernanke gave a speech in Dallas saying the US economy is not out of the woods just yet. Metals were down overnight, oil fell 96c to $85.63 and Gold continued its impressive run – up $17 to $1153. The Aussie dollar fell slightly to 92.70c compared to 92.75c yesterday morning.

In the news today…

  • Peabody Energy has asked the Takeovers Panel to force Macarthur Coal (MCC) to postpone its shareholder meeting to allow more time for consideration of their takeover bid. MCC rejected Peabody’s cash offer of $14 a share and said it will continue with the Gloucester  Coal acquisition. MCC says there is no basis to delay the shareholders meeting and they are not obliged to engage with Peabody. MCC up 9c to 1440c.
  • Talk that the Newcrest bid for Lihir is a poison pill … in other words Newcrest is concerned about a bid themselves. NCM up 4% since announcing the bid. The Bid for Lihir is worth 410c and it closed yesterday at 389c. NCM up 17c today to 3544c and LGL up 9c to 398c.
  • Mirvac Group (MGR) has successfully completed their $350m institutional placement. They have placed 250m staples securities at 140c.  MGR down 6.5c to 141.5c.
  • Hastings Diversified (HDF) up 5% to 127.5c after APA Group (APA) upped its stake in the company to 14.9%. APA paid $72.3m for 51.6m shares at 140c each.
  • Healthscope (HSP) has signed an agreement to acquire land in Coburg, Melbourne to develop a new private hospital. HSP up 1c to 445c.
  • Macmahon Holdings (MAH) up 8.9% yesterday on talk of a bid from Leighton Holdings (LEI owns 19.9%). MAH down 1.5c today to 77.5c.
  • MetroCoal (MTE) up 31% to 27.5c after announcing a JV with China Coal Import & Export.
  • Takeover target Arrow Energy (AOE) said their partnership with Apollo Gas (AZO) has confirmed the potential of a new gas resource in NSW. AOE has accepted Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina’s takeover offer. AOE up 3c to 506c.
  • Australian unemployment remained steady at 5.3% in March. Total employed increased by a seasonally-adjusted 19,600 in March. Economists expected a 30,000 employment increase.
  • Stocks hitting a fresh yearly high today include: Iluka Resources (ILU), iiNet (IIN), Medusa Mining (MML).

The Dow Futures are down 19 at midday.

MARCUS PADLEY is the Author of the MARCUS TODAY Daily Stockmarket Newsletter.

For a free 5 day obligation free trial of the MARCUS TODAY newsletter (and no we won’t ask for a credit card number) please Click Here 00 you will receive our renowned and popular Daily email about the stockmarket with all the stuff you need to know ahead of the trading day including overnight developments, news, comments, rumours, broker stuff and Ideas from Marcus and his Team. You will also be given a password to the MARCUS TODAY website including access to our Recommended Portfolio which is actively managed on behalf of subscribers.…no “set & forget”. Everything you need to effortlessly managed your own long term investment portfolio.

It includes an Income Portfolio. And for the traders we monitor short and medium term trades on top of the portfolio. Members also get access to our Database 00 all the numbers with comments on the ASX 200 stocks and more. Members also get access to our Educational section which includes an archive of Marcus’s Educational and Entertaining articles.  We are sure you will enjoy and profit from what we offer. Thousands of subscribers enjoy and profit from our services every day. We have one of the highest re-subscription rates in the financial newsletter industry.

For your FREE TRIAL — Click here

To Subscribe to MARCUS TODAY — Click Here

We also offer a FREE END OF DAY EMAIL — Click here — A free summary of the day in the market.

To buy MARCUS’S BOOK “Stock Market Secrets” — Click here