The market is down 49, but was down as much as 90 points earlier. The SFE Futures were down 5 this morning.

The Dow Jones was down as much as 245 but closed up 60 points on Friday on a positive employment report and QE3 whispers again. Since then the S&P announced a downgrade of US debt to AA+ from AAA and said the new rating is “negative,” suggesting a further downgrade is possible. The Dow Futures are down over 200 points this morning. New Zealand is down 2.26%. China down 0.5% first thing. The July payrolls report was better than expected. Unemployment fell to 9.1%. The ECB is expected to announce a plan to buy Italian bonds in order to lift confidence in the euro zone. The oil price rose 25c to $86.88, and gold fell $7.30 to $1650.20. The A$ dollar is buying 104.26c down from 104.58c.

In the news today…

  • Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (BEN) reported net profit for the year to June 30 of $342.1m, up 41% from the prior year.  They expect the market to remain volatile in the period ahead and said that funding conditions have been and are expected to remain tight. They declared a dividend of 30c FF. BEN up 1c to 808c.
  • JB Hi-Fi (JBH) has reported a 7.55% drop in full year net profit to $109.70m. Revenue rose 8.35% to $2.96bn. They say the market is expected to remain challenging in the period ahead. JBH said “While we anticipate the market will remain challenging, we will continue to focus on driving market share growth” and expect the coming year “to be another solid year of sales and earnings growth”, with sales to be “circa $3.2 billion, an eight per cent increase on the prior year.” JBH up 1.8%.
  • Rio Tinto (RIO) and Mitsubishi have made an offer to buy the 14% of Coal & Allied (CNA) that they do not already own. They offered $122 a share, a 34% premium to the last price, valuing CNA at $10.6bn. But Coal & Allied said the offer was incomplete, and was not capable of being accepted. CNA goes ex-dividend today. CNA up 28.8% to $117.28, RIO down 61c to 7139c.
  • Argo Investments (ARG) has reported full year profit up 11.8%. They say they are ready to take advantage of buying opportunities with $160m in cash reserves and no debt. ARG up 1% to 519c.
  • Clough (CLO) is in a trading halt pending an announcement on a transaction. Last traded at 67c.
  • Gunns (GNS) is in a trading halt as it seeks to provide clarity following the signing of a state and federal inter-governmental agreement that has potential material implications for the company. GNS last traded at 20.5c.
  • Centro Properties (CNP) is in a trading halt pending a potential transaction. CNP last traded at 5c.
  • Telstra (TLS) will start selling its new fourth generation (4G) wireless mobile Internet technology to businesses in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane this month. TLS down 2c to 287c.

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