Sydney, Sept 13, 2007 (ABN Newswire) - Aussie shares could open higher this morning, with energy firms gaining on record high oil prices, offsetting a flat finish in New York. Consolidated Minerals will likely be in focus as Palmary and Pallinghurst continue to stalk the miner.

The S&P/ASX200 was down 15 points to 6,220. On the futures market the SPI200 is up 18.

Turning to currencies, the Australian dollar has extended gains to rise past 84 US cents for the first time in a month and at 8:35 AM is buying 84.15 US cents, on the crosses the dollar is buying 96.04 yen, 60.53 Euro cents, and 41.48 British pence.

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

Video Link

http://abnnewswire.net/fnnlnk/PF25G7XT


Audio Link

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/83792094


Making news headlines this morning is Consolidated Minerals. Its shares were up 2.51% to $4.50 on Wednesday as the battle for its control continues. Ukraine's Palmary Enterprises has raised its cash bid to $4.50 per share from its previous $3.95, trumping a bid of $4.10 by Pallinghurst Resources. Palmary's bid is conditional on Consolidated's board unanimously recommending its proposal by 10:00 Melbourne time on September 17th. The bid is worth just over $1 billion dollars. Consolidated's board has flip-flopped between the two competing bidders in the past few weeks. Consolidated earnings climbed back into the black in fiscal 2007 after posting a loss the previous year.

Babcock & Brown shares were down 1.35% to $23.30 on Wednesday. The investment firm says it will list its aircraft leasing firm Babcock & Brown Air. The company expects 21.5 million American Depositary Shares to be priced between $22 and $24 each; raising up to $516 million. The cash will be used to buy 47 planes to allow the company to cash in on rising air travel demand. In addition to the proceeds from the listing, B&B Air expects to raise more than $846 million through a related securitization. Babcock & Brown's earnings highlight was in 2006.

The S&P/ASX top 200 companies trading ex-dividend today are Corporate Express Australia with a 13.5 cent fully franked dividend to be paid on the 10th of October and Southern Cross Broadcasting with a 37 cent 100 per cent franked dividend to be paid on the 28th of September.

To international markets, US markets were little changed in a day of light trading ahead of next week's Federal Reserve meeting; The Dow Jones Industrials eased 17, the S&P500 was mostly flat and the Nasdaq composite shed 5 points.

European markets were stronger; London's FTSE climbed 26 points; Paris advanced 29, and Frankfurt added 15.

Asian stocks were mixed; Hong Kong's Hang Sang jumped 358 points; Tokyo's Nikkei lost 80, and China's SSE Composite lifted 59.

Back to the US, gold lost 40 cents to $720.70 US an ounce for the spot contract on Comex, Silver lost 4 cents to $12.79, copper was 3 cents weaker at $3.36.

And finally, oil surged after the government's weekly report showed a surprise drop in crude oil inventories. Oil briefly hit an all-time high of just over $80 dollars during the day but settled up $1.68 cents to $79.91 for October light crude in New York.

Source: Finance News Network © 2007 http://www.finnewsnetwork.com.au

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