The market is down 1. It was up 33 early on. The SFE Futures were up 34 this morning.

Wall St closed up 78 on Friday. It closed on its high and was down 22 at one stage. Dow hit a 12 month high and the S&P500 was up every day of the week, which hasn’t happened since November 2006. Metals were weaker and the oil price rose 8c to $71.77. Aussie dollar fell to 90.48c and Gold also fell to $7.70 to $1048.

Not a busy week ahead with the main events being third quarter results season, quarterly production numbers and the AGM season. The RBA Bulletin is also out of Thursday.

Making the news today…

  • Fortescue Metals (FMG) plans to spend $360m to increase the development of its Christmas Creek mine, which will lifts its total annual iron ore production to around 55m metric tons. Its production has exceeded expectations. FMG has mined 10.3m metric tons of ore in the 3Q and shipped 9.53m tonnes. Its cash position has also improved to $US704m, up from $US654m. FMG up 9c to 386c.
  • Mirvac Group (MGR) has launched a $256m takeover offer for Mirvac Real Estate Investment Trust (MRZ). It will offer 50c cash a share for each Mirvac REIT unit up to 20,000 units, plus one Mirvac security for every three units in excess of 20,000 units, or one Mirvac security for every three Mirvac REIT Units. MRG already owns 24.6% of MRZ. MRZ last traded at 56c. MGR down 3.5c to 162.5c.
  • Lend Lease (LLC) plans to become a stapled entity which believes will provide a more efficient structure to its ownership of investment assets. LLC up 12c to 1063c.
  • Street Talk was on the money this morning with Servcorp (SRV), it plans to raise $80m by selling new shares to retail and institutional investors to take advantage of depressed prices for real estate. SRV in a trading halt, last traded at 415c.
  • George Soros will invest $US1bn in clean-energy technology and create an organization to advice policymakers on environment issues.
  • According to Street Talk, BHP Billiton is closing the first round of bids for its Ravensthorpe nickel laterite operations. BHP up 12c to 3798c.
  • China’s Yanzhou is on the verge of resubmitting its FIRB application for its $US3.54bn takeover of Felix Resource (FLX). FLX down 1c to 1674c.
  • Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group (BBI) says its $625m institutional placement, which is part of its $1.5bn recapitalization plan to pay down debt, closed fully subscribed. BBI down 9.4% to 4.8c.
  • Stocks hitting fresh yearly highs today include: AMP Ltd (AMP), Biota Holdings (BTA), Equinox Minerals (EQN) and McPherson’s (MCP).

The Dow Futures are down 3 at midday.

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

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