Sydney, Sept 25, 2007 (ABN Newswire) - Australian shares have nudged up 0.1 per cent to a new lifetime high, buoyed by gains in mining firms on stronger base metal prices.

At Midday the S&P/ASX200 index is up 32 points to 6,484 and on the futures market the SPI-200's up 43.

In company news this hour, PBL and West Australian Newspapers have offloaded Hoyts to the buyout firm Pacific Equity Partners, making a loss on their original investment in the cinema chain. James Packer's PBL and WAN agreed to the $440 million sale, which includes $140 million in debt. Both companies will reap $150 million when the sale is completed in November. The deal caps more than two years of disappointing results following a slump in box office sales in 2005. The companies bought Hoyts from the Packer family for $520 million, including debt in December 2004. Shares in PBL are up 1.94 per cent to $18.95.

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Telstra says the highest speed offered on its wireless broadband services will effectively double after today's launch of a new service. The company's turbo-charged laptop cards will deliver maximum download speeds of six megabytes per second and average download speeds between 550 kilobytes and 3 megabytes per second.Telstra Bigpond group managing director Justin Milne says the cards can work anywhere in Australia with Next G mobile network coverage, which covers up to 98.8 per cent of the Australian population. Telstra shares are down 0.46 per cent to $4.37.

Now we'll take a look at Warrants with Macquarie Bank. Aussie stocks have risen to a fresh life-time high, led by continued strength in the major miners, but Woodside Petroleum fell on softer oil prices. BHP Billiton has jumped another 2.5 per cent in trade as investors continue to bid the stock higher ahead of up-coming iron ore price negotiations. Traders in the warrants' market that envisage further upside bought leveraged exposure in the stock through BHPIMU Oct07 $30.00 Instalment, whilst others believing the stock has run ahead of itself opened positions to the downside through BHPVMX Oct07 $42 Put.

All of the major banks are higher, despite more credit worries overnight in the European market, with National Australia Bank up almost half of a percent. Investors believing the stock represents value at these levels bought leveraged exposure through NABJMM Jun08 $25.27 Income Instalment.

Turning now to market indices. At Midday, the index posting the biggest gain by percentage points is the Materials, which is up 208 points to 15,312. Shares in Aquarius Platnim are up 2.84 per cent to $43.46. Shares in BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are also higher.

The worse performing index by percentage points in the Industrial, which is down 40 points to 7,049. Shares in Leighton Holdings are down 1.75 per cent to $51.53. Shares in Brambles and Qantas are also lower.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei is down 10 and in New Zealand the NZSX-50 is down 16.

Gold is currently trading at $730 US an ounce and one Australian dollar's buying 86.65 U.S cents.


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

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