The market is up 13. The SFE Futures were up 33 this morning.

Wall St. closed up 73 overnight. The Dow was up 77 at best and down 41 at worst. Financials did well on news that the SEC had only voted 3-2 to pursue Goldman Sachs for fraud, suggesting that they may not have that strong a case. Metals struggled overnight, oil fell $1.06 to $83.32 and Gold dropped slightly — 90c to $1136. The Aussie dollar fell to 92.20c compared to 93.35c.

In the news today…

  • AXA Asia Pacific (AXA) down 18c to 616c after the ACCC blocked the NAB’s $13.3bn takeover offer due to competition issues. This puts AMP in the hot seat to renew its bid. AMP down nearly 3% today to 621c. The NAB has rallied today on expectations they will not need a $1.5bn capital raising any more — up 2.64% to 2882c.
  • Newcrest Mining (NCM) has told Lihir Hold (LGL) they want access to their data room for further due diligence and is willing to improve the structure of their takeover offer, but not the price. NCM down 20c to 3380c and LGL down 1c to 395c.
  • CITIC, 22.4% owner of Macarthur Coal (MCC), say they need more time to decide on Peabody Energy’s improved $16 a share offer. MCC’s other two major shareholders believe the offer is worth considering. MCC up 9c to 1663c.
  • Harvey Norman (HVN) down 4.2% or 15c to 342c after announcing disappointing 3rd Q sales numbers. Underlying sales for the 9 months to March 31 were up 2.2% and up 1.4% on a like-for-like basis. Other retailers also down. JB Hi-Fi down 2.1%.
  • Wotif.com (WTF) down 7.5% to 703c after releasing a profit update. Annual net profit is likely to rise as much as 28% for the year to between $52m and $56m, compared to $43.5m last year. Analysts were looking for a profit of $56m. Expectations are expected to come down a little. They will release their annual result on August 25th. Flight Centre down 4.5%. Webjet up 2.4%.
  • Nufarm (NUF) — Trading Halt — they have announced a fully underwritten 1-for-5 $250m equity raising at 575c a share. NUF reiterated FY net operating profit guidance and says there is strategic merit to cutting their debt levels. NUF last traded at 775c.
  • The Chinese stockmarket fell 4.8% yesterday as the Chinese government told banks to halt loans for third home purchases. Biggest fall since August.
  • The RBA Minutes from the April board meeting say stronger than expected iron ore and coal prices encouraged the RBA to raise interest rates. Brokers have been upgrading Australian GDP expectations.
  • Companies hitting fresh yearly highs: Andean Resources (AND), Billabong (BBG), CBH Resources (CBH), Mitchell Communications (MCU), Medusa Mining (MML) and White Energy (WEC).

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