Another good day for the market. It is up 65. The SFE Futures were up 53 this morning.

Wall Street closed up 108. Yet another new yearly high. Dow up 116 at best and down 4 at worst. Metals had a strong session overnight in London. The oil price closed up $1.41 and gold continues its rally overnight closing at $1020. The Aussie dollar is up again to 87.29c from 86.33c yesterday morning.

In the news today…

  • Woodside Petroleum (WPL) up 1.9% this morning, backing up its 4.8% rise yesterday, after the US-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp said a consortium including Woodside discovered oil off the coast of Sierra Leone. WPL now trading at 5194c. The stock is up 19.3% in the past 30 days.
  • Bank of Queensland (BOQ) completes retail offer — it raised $110 million via its retail offer and $230 million through its institutional offer. BOQ down 7c to 1099c.
  • BC Iron (BCI) has started trial mining at the Nullagine iron ore project in the Pilbara. It is a JV with Fortescue Metals and the project has a probable mining reserve of 36 million metric tons. FMG unchanged at 419c. BCI up 2.4% to 104c.
  • Ron Walker will step down as chairman of Fairfax Media (FXJ) in August next year. FXJ up 4.2% to 173.5c.
  • Talk of Macquarie Media Group (MMG) restructuring its management. The stock is up 41% in the past month. It has told the ASX it has no idea why the share price has run so hard. MMG up 7% to 205c.
  • Austar (AUN) has extended its 2011 debt repayments by a further three years. Talk of AUN merging with Foxtel now that Telstra’s 50% ownership in Foxtel might be up for grabs.
  • Lion Nathan (LNN) board has reiterated its support for the $3.3 billion Kirin Holdings takeover. LNN up 1c to 1194c.
  • B&B Infrastructure (BBI) says any recapitalisation details are not yet finalised. BBI up 0.2c to 5.4c.
  • Telstra (TLS) continues to recover. Up another 4c to 328c.
  • Centrebet (CIL) again has released odds on an official change to the RBA interest rate. “No Change” has opened favourite at $1.10, with a 0.11-0.25bps increase at odds of $3.75. You can get $26 for a rate cut. CIL is unchanged at 107c.

Notables hitting a fresh yearly high today: Commonwealth Bank (CBA), Kingsgate Consolidated (KCN), Molopo Australia (MPO), Macquarie Group (MQG), Tox Free (TOX) and Troy Resources (TRY).

The Dow Futures were up 10 at midday.

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

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