The market is up 6. The SFE Futures were up 7 this morning.

Wall Street closed up 123 overnight.  The Dow was up 137 at best and down 59 at worst. US volume overnight was 20% above the 2010 average. Business confidence hit its highest levels since September 2008 (it wasn’t exactly booming in Sept 2008). Ben Bernanke said his best guess was for a continued economic recovery at a ‘moderate’ pace. Oil price put on 55c to $71.99 and Gold up $4.80 to $1245.60. The Aussie dollar improved to 82.72c from 80.95c.

In other news today…

  • Photon Group (PGA) remains in a trading halt. Talk that the new CEO Jeremy Phillips will announce yet another profit downgrade and capital raising. He wants to give shareholders a reliable earnings forecast before embarking on a capital raising.
  • Redflex Holdings (RDF) has received a 250c a share takeover offer from Macquarie Group (MQG). It is an indicative, non-binding and confidential offer, which values the company at $275m. RDF tells shareholders to take NO ACTION. RDF up 5c to 235c.
  • Elders down another 11% today to a multi decade low of 77c on continuing concerns about obtaining finance for their forestry projects. ELD was also downgraded by one broker to HOLD from BUY and its target price to 94c from 165c.
  • Wotif.com (WTF) expects their FY profit to increase by as much as 20% to between $52m-$56m. WTF up 8c to 498c.
  • According to the front page of the AFR, Chalco (a subsidiary of Chinalco) is believed to be putting on hold a $3bn bauxite project in QLD as a result of the RSPT.
  • Avoca Resources (AVO) up 5% to 229c after announcing their South Kalgoorlie mine produced a record 12,222 troy ounces last month.
  • China’s Tsingtao Brewery is apparently interested in Foster’s Group (FGL) soon to be demerged beer business. Bright Foods, the same company bidding for CSR’s sugar division, is undertaking due diligence on both the wine and beer businesses. FGL up 2c to 565c.
  • Paladin Energy (PDN) says Canada’s Uranium One Inc. has sold their small shareholding in PDN in the past few months. PDN up 4c to 381c.
  • Consumer Sentiment fell for the second straight month in June — down 5.7% from May after a 7% fall the previous month.
  • Australian Housing Finance fell by a better-than-expected seasonally adjusted 1.8% in April. Economists were expected a fall of 2.0%. The value of investment housing loans in April increased 1.3% from March.
  • Stocks hitting fresh 52 week lows include: Elders (ELD), iSoft Group (ISF) and Rivercity Motorway (RCY).

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