Our market is up 28. The SFE Futures were up 54 this morning.

Wall Street put together two consecutive sessions of gains closing 111 higher overnight. The Dow was up 129 at best and down 12 at worst. Housebuilders outperformed and led the market after some good results from major housebuilder DR Horton.

All metals finished higher, Oil put on 3.1% to $77.24, Gold closed up $13 to $1118 and the Aussie dollar took a hiding after the RBA left interest rates unchanged yesterday – now at 88.61c compared to 89.18c yesterday morning.

Making the news headlines today…

  • ROC Oil (ROC) down 29.13% to 45c after announcing a massive downgrade to reserves at its Basker-Manta-Gummy field. ROC’s CEO says “It is very disappointing” and they are “a bit shocked by the outcome”. Patersons maintain their SELL recommendation.
  • Insurance Australia (IAG) up 4.75% to 397c after lifting their expected FY insurance margin in the range of 11.5-13%, up from 9-11%. They also expect a 1H insurance profit of $488m.
  • News Corp’s (NWS) 2Q result has come in better than expected. NWS up 4% to 1755c today as a result. They announced earnings of $254m, or 10c a share, compared to $6.4bn loss last year. Excluding significant items, EPS increased to 25c a share, up from 15c. Analysts expected 20c a share. NWS up 2.93% in after hours trade on the NYSE.
  • Talk of James Packer and Kerry Stokes merging some of their media interests. CMJ up 4c to 312c and SEV up 1c to 671c.
  • GrainCorp (GNC) up 6c to 591c — they have held their Investor Day today.
  • The Australian Financial Review says Tabcorp Holdings (TAH) may have to pay more under new government laws that will allow racing authorities to change fees for horse race information based. TAH up 7c to 708c. They have results tomorrow.
  • Amcor (AMC) got a better deal from the Alcan packaging acquisition than it bargained for. Thanks to the US$ tanking it over the negotiation period, AMC saved around $160m according to one broker. AMC up 15c to 615c.
  • Macmahon (MAH) will undertake a 2 year $65m Renison mine contract. It hasn’t done much for the share price, MAH up 1c to 59.5c.
  • The trade deficit widened to over $2bn in December but came in lower than expected. It grew to a seasonally adjusted $2.25bn, economists expected $2.4bn.
  • Results coming up next week include: Monday: JBH Tuesday: AWC, COH Wednesday: BHP, CBA, CPU and SGP Thursday: LEI, RIO, TLS and Newcrest on Friday to name a few.
  • Stock hitting fresh yearly highs today include United Minerals (UMC) and Coal of Africa (CZA).

The Dow Futures were up 7 at midday.

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