Another good day for the market — it is up 64 having been up 77 at best. The SFE Futures were up 56 this morning.

The Dow Jones closed up 115 overnight. Dow up 127 at best and up 2 worst. It was a great session for metals on the LME with Copper, Zinc, Nickel and Aluminium all up over 4%. Oil price was up $2.13 to $71.58 and Gold was also up $2 to $956.60. The US$ fall is driving commodity prices — $A up again to 84.17c.

Dr. Doom — professor and economist Nouriel Roubini — was on ABC Lateline last night and was speaking yesterday at the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum. He basically said Australia is better placed to ride out a storm and that if the global recovery did eventuate, it would be short lived.

In the news today…

  • ANZ Bank (ANZ) announced this morning it will spend $US550m buying some Royal Bank of Scotland’s Asian banking operations. CEO Mike Smith described the acquisition as a further stepping stone to its strategy of becoming a major player in Asia. By 2012, ANZ aims to generate 20% of revenues from Asia. Price up 2.0%.
  • Ten Network (TEN) in a Trading Halt — they plan to raise around $138m though an equity placement to reduce debt levels and not breach its debt covenants. The new equity will be placed at 115c a share compared to yesterday’s closing price of 125c.
  • Bendigo & Adelaide Bank (BEN) has released a profit warning — Cuts its FY earnings guidance by around 16% due to provisions associated with Great Southern Plantations and deteriorating commercial property markets. It is expected to announce its result on August 10. BEN down 3.4%.
  • Navitas (NVT) has announced a 32% rise in FY NPAT and expects growth to continue. NVT up 3.5% and says it hasn’t suffered any effects from the financial crisis.
  • Twenty stocks have hit a fresh yearly high this morning – most notables among them include: The Reject Shop (TRS), IRESS Market Technology (IRE), Mitchell Communications (MCU) and Minara Resources (MRE).
  • MYER Group — used to be owned by Coles Group before it was taken over by Wesfarmers – announced today it is considering listing this year. An IPO is a good indication of confidence in the Australian equities market.
  • ING Office (IOF) says the value of its assets overall fell 12.4% or $454m in the past year.

Also in the news…

  • Morgan Stanley has cut Wesfarmers (WES) to Equalweight from Overweight saying yesterday’s closing price of 2549c is “appropriate” for the stock.
  • Just like Citi and GSJB Were did last week, RBS Equities has upped their recommendation on the Banks to Neutral from Underweight.
  • Charlie Aitken says wealth managers are likely to outperform the broader market just like they have done in previous recovery cycles. He favours AMP, AXA, PPT and IFL.
  • The RBA announces its decision on interest rates this afternoon — rates are expected to remain on hold at 3%.
  • Retail sales increased 2% in the last Q, better than the 1.2% expected by economists. House price index also came in higher than expected — +4.2% in the quarter compared to the +2 expected.

The Dow Futures are down 11 at midday.

MARCUS PADLEY is the Author of the MARCUS TODAY Daily Stockmarket Newsletter.

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