The ASX 200 is down 17. The SFE Futures were up 4 this morning.

Wall St. closed up 9. Dow was up 25 at best and down 109 at worst overnight. The market was down on the open on a Moody’s downgrade of Greece’s debt rating and news of a bigger Greek deficit than expected. Oil price put on 29c to $83.67, Gold fell $8 to $114 and the Aussie dollar fell a touch to 92.59c compared to 92.67c yesterday morning.

  • CSL down 8.1% on concerns about the plasma-based medical products market after Baxter International reported weakness in the sector overnight. Baxter is CSL’s main rival. Baxter fell 13.27% overnight after they cut their FY outlook and admitted they had overestimated the strength in the plasma market. Their other rival Talecris Biotherapeutics fell 9.92% but was up 13% in after-market trade after one analyst suggested they’d gained 6% in market share in the last 6 months.
  • Woodside Petroleum (WPL) — Production Numbers – 1st Q production fell 7% on last year and 5% from the Dec Q at 19.2m barrels of oil equivalent. 1st Q sales revenue came in at $US1.03bn, up 43% on last year. They say Pluto LNG project was almost 87% complete at end of March and that it is on track for first gas by late 2010 early 2011. WPL down 51c to 4633c.
  • The Australian says US hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners has sold another 30m shares in Fortescue Metals (FMG). This is despite Harbinger boss telling FMG CEO Andrew Forrest earlier this year that they wouldn’t be offloading any more shares in the company. FMG down 8c to 500c.
  • A day after Newcrest cut FY production guidance, Lihir Gold (LGL) announced this morning they are lifting their FY production guidance to 1m-1.1m ounces from 960,000-1.06m ounces. They also announced production numbers for the 1st Q – output was down 26% to 229,757 ounces. LGL up 3c to 395c.
  • Austar United (AUN) — 1stQ Profit Result — Announced 1st Q profit doubled to $16.3m from $8.1m. Revenue increased by 7% to $174.3m. AUN down 1c to 116.5c.
  • There is a 40% chance of the RBA raising rates to 4.50% at its next meeting on 4th May.
  • Nufarm (NUF) has successfully completed their institutional entitlement offer raising $144m at 575c a share. NUF down 21c to 720c.
  • Oil Search (OSH) expects annual output of between 7.2m and 7.4m barrels of oil equivalent, in line with previous guidance.  OSH down 7c to 576c.
  • Companies hitting 52 week high: ARB Corp (ARP) and Goodman Group (GMG).

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