Strong start to the week — the market is up 41. The SFE Futures were up 6 this morning.

Wall Street closed up 16 on Friday. The Dow was up 49 at best and down 10 at worst. It has been a positive past fortnight for the Dow Jones — up 5.2%. The big news over the weekend was China agreeing to end the two year peg of the Yuan to the US dollar. The People’s Bank of China will allow more flexibility in their exchange rate but ruled out a significant one-off revaluation. Gold hit a record high closing up $9.60 to $1258.30. The Aussie dollar passed 88c on the Yuan news. Metals were mostly down and Oil was up 39c to $77.18.

In other news today…

  • Telstra (TLS) is the main story this morning — up 4.3% to 337c — after announcing they have reached a heads of agreement yesterday with the federal government over the National Broadband network. The deal exposes TLS to more competition but also secures healthy payments, removing uncertainty surrounding the stock.
  • Sundance Resources (SDL) are in a trading halt and announced the chartered aircraft hired by the company to visit an iron ore site in the Republic on Congo has gone missing with nine people on board.
  • Sigma Pharmaceuticals (SIP) tells their shareholders that they are not certain of meeting their budget this year due to a disappointing performance in their generics division. SIP down 5.3% to 49.5c.
  • GUD Holdings (GUD) has announced the $83.8m takeover of storage product provided Dexion Ltd (DEX). DEX recommends the bid of 80c. DEX up 5c today to 77c. GUD has also launched a capital raising for up to $55m. GUD is in a trading halt and last traded at 865c.
  • Linc Energy (LNC) up 4.5% to 120.5c after announcing they have received several “written indicative” offers for their three QLD coal properties. LNC says they are working with the parties to take the offers to formal binding sales agreements.
  • Fortescue Metals (FMG) and Chinese engineering group, China Gezhouba Group Co. has formally agreed on an engineering and procurement role that will help lift production at their Chichester Hub operations in WA.  FMG up 2.52% to 448c.
  • Citadel Resources (CGG) — Trading Halt — announced a $250m right issue to finance the development of their Jabal Sayid copper project in Saudi Arabia. They last traded at 32.5c.
  • CSR Ltd (CSR) announced they are yet to receive a takeover offer from Sucrogen and are still in talks with Bright Foods. CSR down 0.5c to 174c.
  • Stocks hitting fresh 52 week highs include: Avoca Resources (AVO), Fleetwood Corp (FWD), Kingsgate Consolidated (KCN), OceanaGold (OGC) and St. Barbara (SBM)

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