Australian Market Report: Australian shares fell today but closed well off the day's lows in another volatile session as investors nervously wait for an update on economic stimulus measures in the United States. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index slipped 11.5 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 4814.4, while the broader All Ordinaries index lost 10.4 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 4794.6. More...
The Australian dollar got the cold shoulder in minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's June policy meeting on Tuesday, which revealed the bank saw scope for the currency to fall further. Already under pressure, the Aussie fell as far as 95 US cents after the minutes showed board members thought it is possible that the currency would depreciate further over time as the country's terms of trade declined. More...
The Reserve Bank of Australia has hinted that it is prepared to cut rates further even though the Australian dollar is falling. The bank last cut the official cash rate at its May meeting. It decided to keep rates on hold at its June meeting earlier this month, largely because of the falling Australian dollar. Between the May and June meetings, the Australian dollar fell 7 per cent against a surging US dollar but the RBA considers it to still be too high. More...
Demand for government bonds hit an almost five-month with foreign central banks snapping up Aussie debt as the local dollar leads global currency falls. At an auction April 2015 securities offered on June 14, buyers bid for 5.36 times the offer, the strongest demand at auction since February 15, government data shows. More...
Low interest rates and an upswing in the property market have resulted in the NSW state government budgeting to receive a record $5 billion in stamp duties in the year ahead, with the strong market expected to continue over the next three years. The government is expecting revenues from stamp duties to top $6.2 billion in the four-year forward estimates period, reflecting its optimism in the outlook for a continued turnaround in the property market. More...
Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Saul Eslake says the Australian economy has a 25 per cent chance of going into recession and warns the nation may have to follow the lead of other countries by effectively printing money, The Australian Financial Review reports. According to the newspaper, Mr Eslake believes Australia's politicians and policy makers may have "depleted their options" to avoid a downturn. More...
Super sector consolidation quickens. The country's largest superannuation fund, the not-for-profit AustralianSuper, has quickened the pace of consolidation in Australia's $1.6 trillion retirement savings sector by agreeing to merge with a Queensland industry fund. AustralianSuper, which has 2.1 million members and $62 billion under management, announced this morning that it had reached an in-principle agreement to merge with the Queensland-based AUST(Q) Super, which services the construction, engineering, maintenance and allied industries. More...
More questions on Newcrest disclosure. Newcrest could face further scrutiny from regulators after another analyst was reportedly individually briefed by the firm weeks prior to the gold miner's $6 billion write-down announcement on June 7. More...
Metals X has shelved work on its remote Wingellina nickel-cobalt project because of weak market conditions and low commodity prices. More...
Australian rare earths miner Lynas Corporation has dropped defamation action against a Malaysian green group. In April last year, Lynas initiated legal proceedings against Save Malaysia Stop Lynas. Two months later, independent media website Free Malaysia Today apologised for running stories sympathetic to the activists, who opposed plans for a processing plant. More...
Federal Oakajee funding likely to be lost. The $339 million in Federal funding allocated for the stalled Oakajee port project cannot be used by the State Government for other purposes. The $6 billion project was officially suspended late last week, after Japanese proponent Mitsubishi confirmed it was halting further work and also putting its Jack Hills iron ore mine expansion on ice. More...
The Bunbury Port Authority will spend $1.5 million of Royalties for Regions money to investigate options for the realignment of the Preston River to enable the Bunbury Port Inner Harbour expansion. A design and engineering report will detail how the port can meet future demand as coal, grain and alumina exports increase. The report is expected to take 18 months to complete. More...
Elders has shunned a takeover bid for its rural services division by rival Ruralco, sparking a slide in its share price. Elders’ shares dived after the company came out of a trading halt, sliding 1 cent, or 11 per cent, to 8 cents. More...
Gaming and leisure group Genting Hong Kong has increased its stake in Australian casino owner Echo Entertainment Group Ltd. Genting HK bought almost 11.4 million Echo shares last week to increase its stake in Echo from 5.2 per cent to 6.6 per cent, Echo said in a market statement late on Tuesday More...
Banks raise rates in haste, cut at leisure: report Big banks have passed on official interest rate rises to their customers in less than half the time it takes them to deliver rate cuts, new figures show. Since the global financial crisis struck in 2008, banks have taken an average of 10 days to pass on cuts in the cash rate to their home loan customers, according to research published this week by Credit Suisse. In contrast, lenders took about four days when raising rates. More...
Holden asks staff to take pay cut Car maker Holden will ask its Adelaide workforce to take a pay cut to help its assembly plant remain viable. The company says it will seek the support of the workforce to achieve significant annual savings and productivity improvements. More...
Unions oppose Holden pay cuts More...
Lisa Ho to close its doors forever Well-regarded industry stalwart and a star performance at the recent Australian fashion week weren't enough to keep designer brand Lisa Ho in business, with stores set to close. Today, administrators for the Lisa Ho Group, Barry Taylor and Todd Gammel of HLB Mann Judd, announced that despite considerable interest, 'a sale of the Lisa Ho Group business as a going concern has not been achieved within the sale program'. More...
Cutlery, kitchen goods and beauty product marketer McPherson's is set to post a full year loss because of a major expansion of its business. The company's brands include Wiltshire, Stanley Rogers, Lady Jane and Manicare. It expects to incur a writedown of about $50 million on the value of its intangible assets in its 2012/13 financial year, after diversifying its product range and customers, McPherson's said on Tuesday. More...
Cost focus for new News Corp, report says. Rupert Murdoch's hived-off newspaper business is tipped to suffer a fall in earnings in its first two years of stand-alone operation as it tries to reduce costs. Shares in New News Corp (NNC) will start trading on the Australian Securities Exchange on Wednesday on a deferred settlement basis, ahead of the June 28 full demerger of News Corp. More...
Big retail critics 'costing jobs':industry. The chairman of Australia's peak retail body has launched a strongly worded attack on critics of Australia's biggest retailers, saying a stream of misinformation is threatening job creation and impeding growth in the sector. More...
Mining, finance cuts blamed for fall in leasing. The weakening mining sector and the flat job market have led to a deterioration of the commercial property market, according to the ANZ Bank's property department. Although capital continues to flow in from super funds and overseas investors to the bricks and mortar sector, which offers a haven with higher yields, the underlying leasing conditions are tough. More...
Lend Lease Group Ltd has reiterated its full-year earnings guidance will meet market expectations after announcing an overhaul its Australian construction and infrastructure businesses. The group said its result would be "solid" and fall in line with analyst expectations of $540 to $550 million and the published Bloomberg median of $547 million. More...
Target left blushing over MAC make-up case. Target has all but run up the white flag and offered to settle its court battle with US cosmetics giant Estee Lauder over its sale last year of allegedly counterfeit MAC make-up. In the Federal Court on Tuesday Target made an offer to Make-Up Art Cosmetics, a subsidiary owned by Estee Lauder, to settle the case brought against it when it was discovered that Target was selling what was claimed to be fake MAC products. However, Target has not admited guilt nor accepted that its MAC cosmetics were indeed counterfeit. More...
Security screeners march on Qantas terminal Security screeners campaigning for better pay at Perth's Qantas domestic terminal were told to move on by police this morning. The screeners, employed by MSS Security, are fighting for pay increases to bring them closer to their Melbourne counterparts. Industrial action has escalated since the start of the month as negotiations with MSS Security continue to break down. More...
Drop in car sales in WA. The slowdown in WA's mining sector is filtering through to the car market as potential buyers tighten their belts. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that since their most recent high point in December, car sales across the State have dropped more than 8 per cent. More...
Online shopping licence mooted for consumers. A consumer fraud forum in Melbourne has been told online shopping licences for people who wish to purchase goods on the internet could be used as a way to stamp out fraud. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is hosting the forum, and it says at least $93 million was lost to scams in the past year. More...
Rinehart family money war heats up Gina Rinehart's son John Hancock has made "highly disparaging" remarks about his youngest sister which undermine his suitability as proposed trustee of the multi-billion-dollar family trust, a Sydney court has heard. The bitter Rinehart family battle returned to the Supreme Court on Tuesday for a brief pre-trial directions hearing. More...
Construction giant Leighton Holdings Ltd has appointed three new board members to replace several directors that resigned because of a rift with the company's major shareholder. More...
Opinion - Alan Kohler: Is our economy weathering the 'perfect storm'? Domestic demand is declining due not to the long election campaign, but to the high levels of household debt. That process is likely to continue after the election, especially if a new government imposes new austerity measures to repair its own balance sheet, More...
Opinion - Michael Pascoe: RBA miss negates minutes' smile The missed growth forecast aside, the RBA minutes are relatively upbeat - but there is an intriguing warning on Japan. More...
Opinion - Stephen Bartholomeusz: Holden's desperate wage jettison to stay in the race Had Ford not announced last month that it would cease local vehicle manufacturing in 2016, Holden’s request that its workers take a significant pay cut would probably have been greeted with some cynicism. More...
Opinion - Malcolm Maiden: ASIC has far too much on its plate More...
U.S. Market Report: Bulls becoming 'emboldened'. U.S. stocks rose Tuesday, as investors digested a pair of economic reports and the Federal Reserve began its two-day policy meeting. The Dow Jones industrial average gained more than 120 points, or 0.8%. The S&P 500 edged up 0.6%, while the Nasdaq added 0.8%. More...
North/South Americas Market Report: North and South American markets are higher today with shares in U.S. leading the region. The S&P 500 is up 0.85% while Brazil's Bovespa is up 0.64% and Mexico's IPC is up 0.28%. More...
European Market Report: European markets finished mixed as of the most recent closing prices. The FTSE 100 gained 0.69% and the DAX rose 0.17%. The CAC 40 lost 0.08%. More...
Asian Market Report: Asian markets finished mixed as of the most recent closing prices. The Shanghai Composite gained 0.14%, while Japan's Nikkei 225 was off 0.20%. Shares in Hong Kong were unchanged with the Hang Seng at 21,225.88. More...
Inflation data points to firming economy Inflation showed signs of stabilizing in May after a long decline, a potential comfort to Federal Reserve policymakers who want to avoid any chance of a debilitating bout of deflation. More...
More investors raised their positions in longer-dated U.S. Treasuries holdings in the latest week in advance of the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting, according to a survey released on Tuesday. A total of 19 percent of its Treasuries clients said on Monday they were "long" in their duration on U.S. government debt, or owning more longer-dated Treasuries than their benchmarks, up from 11 percent a week earlier, the latest J.P. Morgan Securities survey showed. This was the highest share of its clients who said they were long in their duration in about five months. More...
Higher energy costs partly offset by cheaper food as US consumer prices rise just 0.1 percent More...
Obama says Bernanke has 'stayed a lot longer' than he wanted at Fed More...
Investors accustomed to late market volatility at the end of the quarter should expect an extra jolt on June 28, when billions of dollars in stock trades will be executed in less than two seconds. That is the day Russell Investments sets the final update for the annual reconstitution of its indexes after the close of trading. This rebalancing creates a surge of liquidity as investors readjust portfolios and try to take advantage of dislocations in stock prices. More...
Billionaire Carl Icahn, seeking to derail a planned leveraged buyout of Dell Inc., is urging the company to offer $14 for each of 1.1 billion of its shares. Icahn is proposing the arrangement as an alternative to the company’s plan to be taken private in a $13.65-a-share deal, outlined by founder Michael Dell and private-equity firm Silver Lake Management LLC in February. More...
HP’s Whitman reassigns Bradley in revamp amid PC slump. Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman is reorganizing the personal computer business, replacing longtime head Todd Bradley with one of his deputies as she strives to overcome a worsening global PC slump. More...
A federal judge has ordered United Technologies Corp to pay $473 million plus interest for manipulating costs to win U.S. Air Force jet engine contracts in the 1980s. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Thomas Rose in Dayton, Ohio, was issued Monday for a 1999 lawsuit in which the Department of Justice sought reimbursement for overcharges by United Technologies subsidiary Pratt & Whitney. More...
Facebook’s Zuckerberg meets Samsung to discuss partnerships More...
M&T Bank Corp will put a comprehensive plan in place to fix problems with its anti-money laundering policies that had caused regulators to put a hold on its $3.7 billion bid to buy Hudson City Bancorp. More...
Even if U.S. President Barack Obama approves the Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian crude oil probably will remain the cheapest in the world, hampering expansion of the country’s largest export industry. Canadian oil prices are forecast to fall compared with world benchmarks because production from oil sands, fields of sand coated with heavy oil beneath about 90,000 square kilometers (34,749 square miles) of boreal forest in northern Alberta, is estimated to more than double to 3.8 million barrels a day by 2022. More...
Leaders of the G8 major economies have agreed new measures to clamp down on money launderers, illegal tax evaders and corporate tax avoiders. Governments agreed to give each other automatic access to information on their residents' tax affairs. They will also require shell companies - often used to exploit tax loopholes and invest money anonymously - to identify their effective owners. The summit communique urged countries to "fight the scourge of tax evasion". More...
The European Central Bank is ready to act to aid the euro zone economy if needed, while signs of market stabilization mean interest rates are becoming a more effective tool again, ECB chief Mario Draghi said on Tuesday. More...
U.S.-based Royalty Pharma has dropped a hostile bid worth up to $8 billion for Elan, leaving the Irish drug maker free to seek other suitors having put itself up for sale last week. More...
UK inflation rose by a sharper-than-expected 2.7% in May, driven higher by the cost of air travel, fuel and clothing. The increase followed a seven-month low of 2.4% in April, according to data from the Office for National Statistics, and puts more pressure on household finances. More...
EU car sales hit 20-year low for May as recession hurts More...
Vodafone faces a battle for Germany's largest cable company, Kabel Deutschland, although rival bidder Liberty Global of the United States has bigger regulatory and funding hurdles to overcome. Liberty Global, which owns Unity Media, Germany's second biggest cable operator, joined the race on Tuesday. It tabled an 85 euro a share offer, according to a person familiar with the matter, days after the British mobile company said it was in talks about a deal. More...
Europe’s covered bond market is falling out of favor with Pacific Investment Management Co. after a record rally sent relative yields to a three-year low. More...
UK house price growth slows to 2.6pc in April More...
British bank Lloyds has denied being subject to political pressure to sell hundreds of branches to the Co-operative Group CWSGR.UL, rebutting suggestions of ministerial interference in the controversial sale. Lloyds has been forced to sell the 632 branches by European regulators as a cost of its taxpayer rescue in 2008, but its choice to sell to Co-op Bank has been slammed after a big hole appeared in the mutual's finances, prompting allegations that politicians had encouraged the choice. More...
Co-op suffers double rating blow as Moody's warns investors may only get a third of their money back The Co-operative Group suffered a double rating blow on Tuesday, as rating agencies Moody's and Standard & Poor's downgraded the mutual, with the former warning that investors may only get back less than a third of their original investment. More...
Monte Paschi sent restructuring plan to EU on Monday More...
Swiss lawmakers nix bank deal with U.S. The Swiss are not giving up bank secrecy without a fight. The lower house of parliament voted Tuesday against a draft law that would have allowed the country's banks to start sharing secret offshore account information with U.S. tax authorities. More...
GE to create Russian venture to build power plants More...
Former UBS and Citigroup trader Tom Hayes has been charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in connection with its investigation into the manipulation of Libor. Mr Hayes, 33, has been charged with eight counts of conspiracy to defraud, and will appear before Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday. These are the SFO's first criminal charges related to Libor. More...
German sportswear maker Adidas expects sales from its soccer division to break the 2 billion euro ($2.7 billion) barrier for the first time in 2014, when the World Cup is played in Brazil, the company said on Tuesday. Adidas is a sponsor of the World Cup and will supply match balls, kit for referees and volunteers in Brazil. Sales from its soccer business were more than 1.7 billion euros in 2012, company officials said. More...
Investors back away from emerging markets on China fears: BofA survey More...
New job for China’s numbers crunchers: finding better jobs data More...
China's house prices rose at the fastest pace this year in May from a year earlier, though the pace of monthly gains slowed, highlighting the dilemma facing the central bank as it balances the need to support the economy against holding down housing inflation. Average new home prices in 70 major Chinese cities in May rose 6 per cent from a year earlier, after a two-year high of 4.9 per cent in April, according to calculations from data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday. The rise was the sharpest since January 2011 when Reuters started to calculate the nationwide data. More...
Thailand pays for failed rice plan. Thailand's government has acknowledged losing more than $US4.46 billion in one year in a much-criticised scheme to support rice prices that ended up dislodging the country from its spot as the grain's top exporter. The program is likely to be amended to reduce the losses, the commerce minister said. More...
Rupee fall hits India’s small importers More...
Opinion - Ben Rooney: Is gold losing its safe haven appeal? More...