Positive finish to the week — the market is up 10. The SFE Futures were up 8 this morning.

Wall Street closed up 24. The Dow was up 32 at best and down 90 at worst. It was a strong finish to the session with the Dow putting on around 80 points in the last hour of trade. Market up on a successful $4.3 billion bond offering from Spain although most of the economic data out of the US was disappointing. Gold was the big mover overnight putting on $21 to $1251.50. Oil fell 88c to $76.79 and the Aussie dollar went up to 86.74c from 86.48c yesterday morning.

In other news today…

  • The DAVID JONES CEO RESIGNS — Mark McInnes has resigned with immediate effect after a female staff member made allegations about inappropriate behaviour towards her. They have replaced him with Paul Zahra who has been with the company for 12 years. DJS down 2% to 442c.
  • Alesco Corp (ALS) — Profits warning — expects to post a FY net loss of around $126m and have cut their entire final dividend after writing down the value of their underperforming water products business. FY EPS is expected to come in towards the lower end of 24c-27c guidance with the result including $140m worth of pre-tax significant items. ALS does expect to pay an interim dividend in March 2011 and will continue to operate within banking covenants. ALS down 6.67% to 266c. This adds to other profits warnings in the run up to results season from TOL, VBA, DOW, AAX, ELD, PRY.
  • BHP Billiton (BHP) says the main rail line transporting iron ore to Port Headland in WA has been closed after an incident last night that resulted in one man dying. BHP up 26c to 3908c.
  • Map Group (MAP) said passenger numbers at their Sydney airport increased 9% in May on last year, with domestic traffic up 11% and international traffic up 4.5%. MAP up 2% to 302c.
  • Elders (ELD) in a Trading Halt. Not a good sign. They need until Tuesday (June 22) to release a trading update. Could be another profit downgrade. ELD last traded at 82c.
  • Dexion (DEX) announced G.U.D Holdings (GUD) has made a bid approach. They believe GUD will make an announcement in relation to the proposed offer prior to the opening of trade on Monday. DEX up 6% to 68c and GUD down 12c to 873c.
  • James Hardie (JHX) has completed their transformation into an Irish company, finalizing their move from the Netherlands. JHX down 1c to 675c.
  • Bathurst Resources (BTU) says they intend to list on the New Zealand exchange and develop a $US60m opencast coal mine near Westport in NZ. BTU last traded at 17c.
  • Stocks hitting fresh 52 week highs include: Avoca Resources (AVO), Lihir Gold (LGL), Perseus Mining (PRU), St. Barbara (SBM) and Silver Lake Resources (SLR).

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