The market is up 15. SFE Futures were up 12 this morning.

Dow Jones up 19. The Dow was up 21 at best and down 75 at worst. US markets were off to a slow start after bearish data from around the world including the Chinese Flash PMI number from HSBC, which hit a 10-month low in our session yesterday. Japan reported a larger than expected trade deficit and the French and eurozone PMI readings came in marginally above expectations but still display a weak trend.

The market picked up throughout the day with the US continuing jobless claims coming in better than expected. The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey improved from -7.1 to -1.9 (six-month high). A risk-off trade went through the market with defensive stocks performing the best (Utilities, Healthcare, Consumer staples) — we saw a similar effect in our market yesterday with Telstra up 4c to 386c along with other defensive stocks like WOW, WDC and CSL. Decent volume yesterday in Telstra — its a bit worrying that everyone’s still buy defensive income. Energy stocks were also amongst the best performers in the US as oil recovered from its losses the day before.

Worst sectors — Financials (-0.5%), Basic Materials (-0.2%) and Technology (-0.2%). European market mixed — UK FTSE down 0.57%, German DAX down 0.02%, France down 0.62%, Spain down 0.95%, Italy down and Greece up 1.41%.

The Markit Economics composite index of purchasing managers in a spread of euro-area services and manufacturing industries dropped to 45.9 for September (below economists’ consensus forecast of 46.6).

Spain completed €4.799 billion in bond auctions. The 10-year bonds went at an average yield of 5.66%, down from 6.647% at the last auction on August 2. The successful auction eases concerns about the Spanish government although there are comments that they are going to have to bite the bullet and that at the moment the Spanish PM Rajoy is ignoring the elephant in the room.

Metals mixed — Copper was down 0.92%, Nickel up 0.77%, Aluminium down 1.33% and Zinc down 0.47%.

  • Premier Investments (PMV) — FY result above expectations — Net profit of $68.25 million up 68.4% from $$40.5 million . The result above a consensus estimate of $61.6 million . PMV is up 9.50% to 168c.
  • Newcrest Mining (NCM) has cut production from their Lihir mine in Papua New Guinea to 25% due to an issue with the electrical system in the main oxygen plant at the mine. NCM is down 2.48% to 2905c.
  • Lynas Corp (LYC) — Has announced a significant reserves upgrade at their Mount Weld mine. LYC is up 1.7% to 89.5c.
  • Fortescue Metals (FMG) has bought back a royalty note held by US investor Leucadia National, which granted the right to 4% of revenue from their Chichester operations. FMG paid $715 million to buy back the royalty. The note was sold for just $US100 million  in 2006. Leucadia has earned more than 11 times the original investment in returns. FMG is up 1.94% to 367c

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