The market is down 18 breaking a ten-day run of gains not seen since 2003. SFE Futures were down 5 this morning.

US market down 44. The Dow was down 57 at worst and up 12 at best on more mixed economic data and company earnings. Nine of the ten S&P500 sectors finished down. The Advance US fourth quarter GDP number came in at -0.1% for the December quarter. The fall was mostly driven by a 22.2% fall in defense spending and Hurricane Sandy disruption. The ADP survey of private payrolls saw 192,000 new jobs created in January. Ahead of the 165,000 expected. Facebook down 1.89% on late results. Research in Motion changes their name to Blackberry and fell 12% on two new product releases that fell flat. The Fed’s QE program continues unchanged (US$85 billion a month) suggesting again that there is little improvement in economic risk — market had expected the Fed to hint at reigning it back mid year but instead said they will need a substantial improvement in the jobs market first — they talked about it improving modestly at the moment. Gold up $15. Bit of relief for the sector which is down 22.2% since October last year. Iron ore up $1 to $149.40. ANZ forecasts a fall to an average $140 this quarter on selling running into the Chinese New Year. The Italian market fell 3.36% on a profit warning from European oil giant Saipem which fell 34% and worried the oil and gas sector. Japanese stock market just hit a 33-month high. Nikkei up 2.3% yesterday. Japanese Yen hit a 32 month high versus the US$. Spanish GDP fell 0.7%.

  • Labor calls an election for September 14 — the eight months of campaigning is unlikely to impact the market although there is talk of changes in the budget to the tax-free status of some superannuation withdrawals as the government establish their “Labor Values” run to the election.
  • Whitehaven Coal (WHC) — Down 6.05% after issuing a profit warning with its quarterly production numbers.
  • Woolworths (WOW) — Q2 Food and Liquor sales up 4.8% to $10.36 billion after heavy discounts. Like for like sales up 2.5%, a bit below expectations but up on last year’s 1.1%. Confirms net profit to grow by 3-6% in 2013. WOW is down 1.52% to 48c.
  • Lynas Corp (LYC) — Quarterly results — No date set for the Judicial review, rare earths prices fell 19% in 3 months to December 31, no new sales contracts secured in last Q and 2nd Phase of plant expansion is 90% complete. LYC is down 3.79% to 63.5c.
  • Virgin Australia (VAH) – ACCC allows Virgin to takeover Skywest. VAH is flat at 42.5c.
  • Australian Agricultural Co (AAC) – FY Results – $8.4m loss, No dividend. ACC is down 1.6% to 123c.
  • Pharmaxis (PXS) – Has received a negative recommendation from PADAC on a new drug application. PXS is down 40% to 75c.
  • Quarterly production numbers – ALK, AZZ, DYL, EGO, GDO, KRM, MML, NST, RIA, STB, TAP, TGS, ZIM, AQA, GUF, IFN, MPO, AUT, BND, CFU, MAD, CJO, GOR, NAN, SSN