The market is up 28 points.The Dow Jones was down 138 points at 16,374 — The market fell at the open and extended losses throughout the day. There was no major economic data and the fall resulted from weak earnings amongst retailers and comments from Fed officials suggesting rates may be raised earlier than expected. Utilities were the best performers while consumer discretionary and financials lagged. Volume was below average in a 172 point range.

USEarnings — Weakness in the consumer discretionary sector resulted from disappointing results from Dick’s Sporting Goods, Home Depot, Staples, Urban Outfitters and TJX.

Europeanshare markets were mixed — The UK FTSE fell 0.57%, the German DAX fell 0.21% and the French CAC fell 0.39%. But the Greek and Italian markets recovered, up 4.95% and 0.30% respectively. European parliamentary elections are at the end of the week.

The Aussie dollar was weaker and is currently trading at US92.40c.

Oil fell US$0.17 or 0.17% to US$102.44 a barrel.

Base metals were weaker — Nickel fell 1.23%, copper fell 0.72% and zinc fell 0.49%. But lead rose, up 1.10%.

Iron ore fell US$1.00 to US$978.50 a tonne.

STORIES

  • Woodside Petroleum (WPL) — Has walked away from a $US2.5 billion deal to buy part of a LNG discovery offshore Israel. WPL withdrew from an early-stage agreement with the Leviathan partners to take a 25%  stake in the discovery.
  • AustinEngineering (ANG) — Trading update — It has downgraded earnings. Financial Year EBITDA is now expected to be in the range of $15-18 million.
  • Fortescue Metals Group (FMG 454c) — Closed +3.89% yesterday despite the iron ore price falling below US$100 and tugboat deckhands looking to go on strike. The negative iron ore price sentiment was more than offset by news they had increased resources at their Greater Solomon mine by 77%. Exploratory drilling revealed an additional 1.16 billion tonnes of ore in its Greater Solomon project.
  • Telstra (TLS 533.5c) — Closed +0.76%, hitting a nine year high after announcing plans of a national Wi-Fi rollout. Wi-Fi networks will be able to handle higher speeds and larger internet loads than 3G and 4G networks. The telco announced that it will build over 8000 wi-fi hotspots in 100 cities / towns. The plan will create two million hotspots across the country when it launches early next year. This means anybody will be able to access the network for a small fee. Telstra customers who opt-in to make their own modem a hotspot will have free access, with the data being deducted from their home allowance. Hotspots are sites that offer wireless internet access via a router connected to an internet service provider. They can generally handle higher speeds and larger traffic loads than 3G and 4G networks that use mobile phone towers.
  • Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) — The company revealed yesterday it had a bid approach back in April from LBO experts KKR out of the US. They only announced it yesterday because KKR had been talking to their large shareholders and they were concerned that it would leak out.