The market is down 6. The SFE Futures were down 14 this morning.

The Dow Jones closed down 21 overnight. The Dow was up 44 at best and down 53 at worst. The S&P 500 has its biggest fall in two weeks but remained above the 1130 technical resistance level. Financials underperformed and the US$ hit a five year low against the Euro and a two year low against the A$. Oil price fell 26c to $74.71 and Gold put on another $17.80 to $1292.10. The Aussie dollar hit a two year high of 95.92c before taking a breather overnight.

Today’s main points…

  • BHP Billiton is being sued by Potash. Potash lodged a complaint in the US federal court saying that BHP’s bid is built on false and misleading statements. On another issue, BHP’s Annual Report released yesterday showed CEO Marius Kloppers was paid $US11.3m. BHP up 23c to 3913c.
  • Murchison Metals (MMX) said their Crosslands JV has upgraded the total resources estimate at their Jack Hills iron ore project to 3.22bn metric tons from 4bn. MMX up 3.5c to 183c.
  • Tower Australia (TAL) and Virgin Money have launched a life insurance alliance. They will introduce life insurance products by early 2011. TAL down 3c to 230c.
  • Virgin Blue (VBA) — The ACCC has granted interim approval to the proposed VBA alliance with Etihad Airways. They can begin selling Australia to Abu Dhabi airfares as of October 1. VBA up 1.5c to 45.5c.
  • Mount Gibson (MGX) — the State Government has approved the Geraldton Port Train unloader upgrade. MGX unchanged at 171.5c.
  • Cudeco (CDU) has announced a $20m placement with “major institutional investor”. It is expected to rebalance and stabilise the share register which is dominated by retail investors. CDU up 8% to 225c.
  • Analysts have described David Jones’ FY result yesterday as solid but prefer the likes of Myer (MYR) and JB Hi-Fi (JBH). Patersons maintain their HOLD recommendation on DJS. DJS fell 7c to 503c.
  • Worth a mention — Woolworths (WOW) felt they needed 55 pages to properly explain their $700m off-market share buyback. WOW up 10c to 2889c.
  • Notable stocks going ex dividend today include: Wridgways Australia (WWA) – 11c.
  • Stocks hitting fresh yearly highs today: Catalpa Resources (CAH), Discovery Metals (DML) and Lycopodium (LYL). Telstra has hit another record low today – down 1c to 265c.

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