Yesterday the Australian share market closed about 5% higher on its first trading day of November with good lead from Wall Street on last Friday and the expectation of another RBA interest rate cut. It was the share markets' fourth consecutive stronger day adding A$51 billion to the value of stocks.
A very mixed picture for the economy from a slew of figures released yesterday means a half a per cent rate cut is now firmly on the cards.
It was a year ago this week that BHP went public with its three share offer for one for rival Rio Tinto, a ratio that was boosted in the formal offer in February to 3.4 to one.
Travel group, Flight Centre Ltd has produced its first earnings downgrade in more than a year.
The collapsing China iron and steel boom story has badly hurt small Australian producer, Mount Gibson, to the point where it will be forced to sack staff and sell iron ore at a loss because of defaults by Chinese buyers.
October was a tough month for sharemarkets and commodities, but not if they were priced in Australian dollars.
Good start to the week – we are up 98 – almost double the 50 point gain the SFE Futures suggested this morning. All sectors up and doing well. Construction sector outperforming with Leighton's up 10.7%, WorleyParsons up 10.4% and Macmahon Holdings up 11.6%. Only a couple more sleeps ahead of the US election. Senator Obama is still the clear favourite to be the next US President. We can expect an RBA decision on interest rates tomorrow 2:30pm – most of us will hear about it at the races.
