Sydney, July 17, 2007 (ABN Newswire) - Australian shares could be searching for direction this morning following a mixed lead from Wall Street, and with mining stocks still under pressure as investors weigh the positives and negatives about consolidation in the sector.

On Monday, the ASX was down 9 points finishing 6,381. On the futures market the SPI200 is up 2.

Turning to currencies, At 8:30 AM the Aussie dollar is buying 87.18 US cents, on the crosses the dollar is buying 106.32 yen, 63.3 Euro cents, and 42.82 British pence. Shares in Gloucester Coal were up 2.81% to $5.12 yesterday. It looks like the company is on the radar of Noble Group after it picked up another 3 per cent of the miner, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The $11.7 million move has taken the Hong Kong commodities group's holding to 13 per cent - more than twice the amount it held when it made a failed initial takeover approach to Gloucester's board earlier this year. Xstrata Coal also made overtures for Gloucester a couple of months back. Gloucester Coal earnings shot up by nearly $32 million dollars over the previous year in 2006

The full report is available at the following video and audio links.

Video Link

http://www.finnewsnetwork.com/asxgen/get_asx.aspx?site=abnnewswire&intro=MBL_AuOutlook.wmv&media=preopening(Broadband).wmv&content_type=BUSINESS_REPORT&date=20070717


Audio Link

http://www.finnewsnetwork.com/asxgen/get_asx.aspx?site=abnnewswire&media=preopening.wma&content_type=BUSINESS_REPORT&date=20070717

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