The market is up 28. The SFE Futures were up 59 this morning.

Wall St. closed up 20 overnight. Up 34 at best and down 29 at worst. The Dow held its ground in a session dominated by earnings results. Metals were mixed, the oil price fell 19c to $79.05 and Gold closed up $1.10 to $1102.50. Of 430 companies in the S&P 500 that reported quarterly earnings since October 7, Bloomberg say 83% of them exceeded estimates. The Aussie dollar increased to 93.05c versus 93c yesterday morning.

Making the news today…

  • St Barbara (SBM) in a Trading Halt — it has announced a capital raising via an entitlement offer at 27c. Not good news for the share price which last traded at 35c. It still has a decent amount of debt it needs to repay. The share price has performed strongly though thanks to an upward moving gold price. SBM up 14.29% in the past 30 days and up 63.64% in the past quarter. Patersons maintains its Hold recommendation.
  • Wesfarmers (WES) held its AGM late yesterday. Main message was that it sees significant long term benefits from Coles, domestic confidence is still fragile and Coles trading continued positively through October. It’s also pleased how the overall group has started the financial year. WES up 2.3% to 2806c.
  • Computershare (CPU) says so far, so good for this year. Profits are tracking “slightly ahead” of those earned in the same period last year. CEO says he is confident the share registry firm will report growth in the year ending June 30 2010 compared to last year. Also says China, India and Russia have strong growth potential. CPU is currently trading on a FY10 PER of 17.3x, in line with the overall market. CPU up 15c to 1093c.
  • Investa Property has abandoned its potential $1bn IPO which may influence the number of companies listing on the market. Institutional investors were unhappy at the premium sought by the company above its NTA. It would have been the first Australian REIT to list in three years.
  • Mineral Resources (MRL) has increased its takeover offer for Polaris (POL). It is now offering 1 MRL share for every 10 POL shares and 5c cash for each POL share valuing POL shares at 74.7c a share.
  • Ausenco (AAX) has announced a business update and 2009 guidance. Expect FY underlying net profit of $26m-$30m and sales revenue of $435m-$465m. AAX down 2.5% to 427c.
  • Australian Worldwide Exploration (AWE) will pay $80m to up its stake in the BassGas Project by 15%. It will also sell 7.5% of its interest in CalEnergy to Innamincka. AWE up 5c to 275c.
  • Rio Tinto (RIO) has hit a fresh yearly high today. RIO up 1.3% to 6833c.

The Dow Futures were up 33 at midday.

MARCUS PADLEY is the author of the MARCUS TODAY Daily Stockmarket Newsletter.

For a free 21-day obligation free trial of the MARCUS TODAY newsletter (and no we won’t ask for a credit card number) please START A FREE TRIAL — you will receive two daily emails about the stockmarket, our MORNING EMAIL with all the stuff you need to know ahead of the trading day ahead and a DAILY EMAIL with all the midday events, news, comments and Ideas from Marcus and his Team.

You will also be given a password to the MARCUS TODAY website including access to all the emails as well as Educational, Entertaining and Researched Articles from Marcus and his Team and an archive where you can catch up on a whole week or month in just a few minutes. Or Browse at length. We are sure you will enjoy and profit from what we offer.