Sydney, Oct 31, 2007 (ABN Newswire) - Aussie shares could open weaker this morning, with a drop in metal and oil prices likely to weigh on resource firms; a sour ending on Wall Street will also likely dent investor confidence.

Yesterday the S&P/ASX200 fell 0.6 per cent or 42 points to 6,750 yesterday. On the futures market the SPI200 is down 27.

Turning to currencies, the Australian dollar eased in offshore trade this morning as US stocks and commodity prices fell; at 8:40 AM the Aussie dollar is buying 91.88 US cents, on the crosses the dollar is buying 105.37 yen, 63.64 Euro cents, and 44.45 British pence.

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

Video Link

http://abnnewswire.net/fnnlnk/47M2BRTT

Audio Link

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/SWA70984

Making news headlines this morning is Tabcorp Holdings which will pay $100 million dollars for the right to remain the only casino operator in NSW for the next 12 years.

Shares in Tabcorp where up 1.06% to A$15.28 on the S&P ASX yesterday. Tabcorp has announced that it will go ahead with plans to invest A$300 Million at its Star City Casino after reaching the agreement with the state. Tabcorp has agreed to pay the A$100 Million over the next eighteen months but the casino's average tax rate will rise by about 3.5%. Tabcorp saw earnings ease in the fiscal year 2007 after peaking the previous year.

Alesco has reaffirmed its 2008 earnings guidance. Shares last traded down 0.96% to A$11.40. Alesco's board made the announcement in light of the mounting negative housing sentiment in Australia and New Zealand. The board says earnings per share growth should come in at a slightly higher rate than the 12.2% earnings per share growth achieved in fiscal 2007. The building materials company will release a further update at the half year mark. Alesco had its strongest profit result in 2005.

And briefly the US Federal Trade Commission has approved early termination of the anti-trust waiting period for Simms Group acquisition of Metal Management. The deal is now expected to close early next year. US Markets eased on negative earnings reports and forecasts as well as nervousness ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision due today.

The Dow Jones Industrials eased 77 points to 13792, the S&P500 shed 10 to 1531 and the NASDAQ lost one point to 2816.

European markets were all weaker; Londons FTSE was down 47 to 6659, Paris dropped 32 to 5803 and Frankfurt also dropped 32 to 7977.

To Asian Markets where Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 51 to 31638, Tokyo's Nikkei was down 47 points to 16651 and China's SSE Composite was up 149 points to 5897.

Back to the US; Gold retreated on sharply lower oil prices. It ended $4.80 weaker at US$787.80 an ounce for the spot contract on CMX, Silver was down $0.10 to $14.33 and Copper fell $0.04 to $3.48.

Finally Oil pulled back around 3%, falling $3.15 to US$90.38 a barrel for December light crude in New York.

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

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