Sydney, Sept 28, 2007 (ABN Newswire) - Australian shares could rise to record heights once again through the day, with energy stocks expected to climb on stronger oil prices and with firm base metal prices supporting miners.

Yesterday the S&P/ASX200 added 57 points to finish at 6,538 rewriting a previous record reached earlier in the week; on the future's market the SPI200 is up 19.

Turning to currencies, the Australian dollar has surpassed 88 US cents for the first time in two months. At 8:40 AM the Aussie is buying 88.06 US cents, on the crosses the dollar is buying 101.87 yen, 62.24 Euro cents, and 43.46 British pence.

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

Video Link

http://abnnewswire.net/fnnlnk/3XXP74XT


Audio Link

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/O2RZS7Z4


Making news headlines this morning is Babcock & Brown. Shares were up 3.73% to $27.50 yesterday. It was a less than stellar first day of trade for its newly formed airline leasing firm Babcock & Brown Air in New York. Shares fell a day after raising $430 million in its IPO. Shares opened at $23 dollars and briefly lifted before falling more than 1 per cent to finish at $22.34. The overall market finished up. Analysts say investors likely balked at the company's estimated debt load. The company's market capitalization, based on Thursday's closing price, was about $764 million. Babcock & Brown earnings soared by around $130 million dollars in 2006 from the previous year.

Shares in Coca-Cola Amatil were down 2.63% to $9.25. Coca-Cola Amatil says the Coca-Cola Company plans to sell about 2.4 per cent of its stake in Amatil to buy a shares in Amatil's former South Korean business. The US firm wants to push expansion in the region. Coca-Cola will sell about 18 million Amatil shares through a book build process. Right now it holds 32 per cent of the Aussie company. Coca-Cola Amatil saw earnings ease in 2006 after hitting a peak the previous year.

And briefly, the final hurdle for Wesfarmers $17 billion dollar takeover of Coles Group has been scheduled for November 7th. Seventy-five per cent of shareholders by value and 50 per cent by number of votes must be secured on that day for the deal to go through.

The S&P/ASX top 200 companies trading exdividend today are PMP with a 3 cent 100 per cent franked dividend to be paid on the 19th of October, and Sims Group with a 60 cent 51% franked dividend to be paid on the 19th of October.

To international markets, US markets ended slightly up after some conflicting economic news; The Dow Jones Industrials closed 35 points stronger, the S&P500 advanced 6 and the Nasdaq composite was up 11 points.

European shares were stronger; London's FTSE lifted 53; Paris gained 43, and Frankfurt climbed 50.

To Asia, where Hong Kong's Hang Sang soared 635; Tokyo's Nikkei advanced 396; and China's SSE Composite was up a more modest 71 points.

Back to the US, gold seesawed under recent highs, but held in positive territory on back of the weak dollar and oil's jump.; it closed $4.40 stronger to $739.90 US an ounce for the spot contract on Comex, Silver gained 10 cents to $13.65, copper was up 3 cents to $3.65.

And finally, oil jumped $2.58 to finish at $82.88 a barrel for November light crude in New York.

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

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