The market is up 10 points. ASX 200 Futures were down 10 this morning.

The Dow Jones finished up 16 but on low volumes ahead of the holiday on Monday. It was up 91 at best and down 33 at worst.

The S&P 500 closed up 3 to 1638 but below its 100 day moving average.

St. Louis Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said, “Conditions for tapering quantitative easing have been met.”

Syria — The UK Parliament voted against military action in Syria without firm evidence and backing from the UN. They don’t want to make the same mistakes as Blair made in the Iraq War (backing the US without UN support or evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction)

The oil price fell 1.18% having spiked 5% in two days on the threat of military action.

US GDP numbers better than expected — It was the second estimate. Second quarter GDP revised up from +1.7% to +2.5% (consensus +2.1%).

Weekly jobless numbers came in better than expected.

BHP was down 0.19% in the US on Friday. The stock closed in the US down 12c on the close here yesterday. RIO down 1.95% in the US.

Gold down $12.10 to $1406.

The A$ is still under 90c at 89.23c. It is down from $92.34c a week ago. The lowest the A$ has been in recent history was 88.48c on 5th August.

European markets all up. The UK was up 0.82%.

The Japanese market was up 0.91% yesterday. The Chinese market was down 0.19% yesterday.

The iron ore price was down 20c to $138.30.

Metals up — Copper up 1.89% and Aluminium up 1.57% the best.

US Economics tonight — Personal income and spending, PCE Prices, Chicago PMI and Michigan  Consumer Sentiment — Final. Bullard speaks.

In Europe tonight — Eurozone CPI Flash Estimate, Eurozone unemployment rate, German retail sales. UK Home prices..

RESULTS & STORIES

  • The UK Parliament has voted against military action in Syria (for now). After the WMD debacle ahead of the Iraq War under Blair, there is a real reluctance to make the same mistakes again without firm evidence that it is warranted and UN support for the action.
  • There is a Chinese official PMI number out this weekend.
  • RBA Meeting next week — no-one expecting another rate cut.
  • Australian GDP and retail sales numbers next week.
  • There is a holiday in the US on Monday for the Labor Day holiday. We are in the peak week for Northern hemisphere holidays.
  • NextDC (NXT) — Due to share volatility they have decided to no longer proceed with the Share Purchase Plan — the share price has dropped below the institutional offer price and presumably they don’t really need the money having done the bulk of the capital raising already.
  • Telstra (TLS 484c) — UBS retain a Sell with a target price of 410c (same recommendation as they had the day after recent results). The reason for the Sell is because of rising competition from Vodafone and Optus who have moved to stem subscriber falls. Both companies are launching new plans to regain lost ground to Telstra. They think the chances of Telstra repeating their past performance is becoming more difficult.
  • Qantas (QAN – 140c) up 13.8% on results yesterday. The chart looks interesting — momentum traders will be interested.
  • Shorted stock changes — Harvey Norman (HVN) and JB Hi-Fi (JBH) have both dropped down the list of most shorted stocks. Myer (MYR) and David Jones (DJS) remain well up the list.
  • Virgin Australia Holdings (VAH) — Results out — No final dividend and no guidance. Pre-tax Net loss of $51.6 million which was worse than an expected loss of $48 million. Financial year 2013 net loss of $98.1 million. Sales were $3.987 billion which was in line with an expected $3.986 billion. No dividend declared and no financial year 2014 guidance provided due to economic uncertainty.
  • Austal (ASB) — NPAT of $35.7 million up 224%, EBITDA of $62.6 million and revenue of $902.8 million up 38%. Order book of $2.6 billion securing construction work through to 2017.