Sydney, Oct 29, 2007 (ABN Newswire) -
The Australian sharemarket could start the week on a high note following New York's Lead and with resource firms underpinning the broader market.
The S&P ASX 200 finished 76.3 points stronger, hitting 6,701 on Friday.
On the futures market the SPI-200 is up 58.
Turning to currencies the AU dollar has hit a 23 year high against the US dollar this morning. At 8:40am the Australian dollar is buying 92.07 US cents.
On the crosses the Australian dollar is buying 105.06 Yen, 63.87 Euro cents and 44.81 British pence.
The full report is available at the following video and audio links.
Video Link
http://abnnewswire.net/fnnlnk/6DOQGG6AAudio Link
http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/W2CA25T6Making news this morning is TabCorp which confirms its bottom line has been hurt by the equine flu outbreak. Tabcorp shares last traded down 0.26% to $15.11.
TabCorp Chief Executive, Elmer Cooper, told the ABC's "Inside Business" yesterday that the company's turnover was down 240 million dollars with that amount expected to double by the time the outbreak is over. Tabcorp has already suffered a 30 million dollar loss in pre-tax profits.
Now despite the losses Cooper said Tabcorp is unlikely to sue for damages any time soon, rather, the company continues to focus on its planned 2 year turnaround.
Tabcorp saw earnings ease in fiscal 2007 after peaking in the previous financial year.
Shares in Coles Group were up 0.75% to A$16.07 on Friday. The "Australian Financial Review" is reporting that Coles has already started sweeping out top executives from its struggling supermarket division.
The first casualty appears to be Peter Merrit who was responsible for overseeing the conversion of BiLo stores. Wesfarmers managing director Richard Goiter has already told analysts he will appoint a Wesfarmers executive as CFO of Coles Supermarkets, Liquor and convenience division. Coles group has been profitable for the past 5 years with 2006 being the highlight.
The S&P ASX top 200 company trading ex-dividend today is GPT group with a 7.3 cent, 0% franked dividend to be paid on the 23rd of November.
To International Markets:
US Markets rallied on positive earnings reports and the likelyhood of an interest rate cut this week.
The Dow Jones industrials rallied 134.78 points on Friday to 13806.7, the S&P500 gained 21 to 1535 and the NASDAQ firmed 53 to 2804.
European markets were stronger; Londons FTSE was up 85 to 6661, Paris gaind 35 to 5794 and Frankfurt advanced 17 to 7949.
To Asian Markets where Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped to 550.73 to 30405.22, Tokyo's Nikkei was up 221.46 points to 16505.63 and China's SSE Composite was up 27.24 points to 5589.63.
Back to the US; Gold ended $16.50 up to $787.50 for the spot contract on CMX, Silver was up $0.38 to $14.28 and Copper added $0.05 to $3.54.
Finally Oil advanced $1.40 to US$91.86 a barrel for december light crude in New York.
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