The market is up 32. SFE Futures were up 24 this morning.

Dow Jones was up 100. The Dow was up 109 at best breaking its three day losing streak. President Barack Obama and Republican speaker John Boehner have met for further talks on the fiscal cliff with the market rallying 60 points in the last hour on news of the Republicans softening their stance on tax concessions for the wealthy. Boehner is offering $US1 trillion in higher tax revenue over 10 years and an increase in tax for those people making more than $US1 million a year. He has also offered a large extension to the government’s borrowing cap to fund the government for one year before the issue must be revisited – conditional on the President agreeing to $US1 trillion in cuts. No news on whether the Democrats have agreed to the proposals.

Best sectors — Home builders, Financials, Consumer Disc, Oil and Gas. Worst sectors – Metals and Mining.

European market mixed — UK FTSE down 0.16%, German DAX up 0.11%, France down 0.14%, Spain up 0.20%, Italy up 0.61%.

Spot iron ore up again making fresh five month highs of $132.20. Metals mixed – Copper down 0.06%, Nickel down 1.52%, Aluminium up 0.54%, Lead up 0.54%. Spot iron ore up $2.90 to $132.20. Gold up $2.10 to $1699.10.

  • DuluxGroup (DLX) — AGM — Has moved to compulsorily acquire all remaining Alesco shares. Dulux has urged remaining Alesco shareholders to accept their offer before the 19th December. The company also said that they expect profit to the end of March, to be higher than the prior year’s profit of $79.6 million. DLX is up 0.4% to 372.5c.
  • Ansell (ANN) — Has acquired Brazilian manufacturer Hércules Equipamentos de Protecao Ltda for $72.86 million. Hércules is a leading manufacturer of personal protective equipment in Brazil with around 350 employees and annual sales of around $US30 million. The transaction is expected to be finalised by early January and have little impact on earnings in fiscal 2013. ANN is up 0.19% to 1543c.
  • Uranium Stocks — A weekend victory for the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan has raised fresh hopes for strengthening uranium demand in 2013 as the country’s nuclear reactors are gradually switched back on. Uranium stocks are all up on the back of this — RIO is up 1.4% to 6442c, PDN is up 6.99% to 103.25c and ERA is up 7.66% to 133.5c.
  • CBA — Has reached an agreement with John Symond to increase their investment in Aussie Home Loans from 33% to 80% with the right to subsequently move to 100% ownership. CBA is up 0.82% to 6179c.
  • TZ (TZL) — Has announced they have entered into an agreement with Temando Pty Ltd to deliver parcels to the network of Adam lockers, which can be accessed 24 hours a day. TZL has had a tough year after they lost a tender to supply lockers to Australia Post. TZL is up 21.7% to 14c.
  • The RBA released minutes from the December policy meeting where they cut rates by 25bps saying the short-term outlook for investment in sectors outside of resources remained subdued.

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