Australian Stock Market Report – Midday 10/4/13

Mid Session Report
(12:30 AEST)

The Australian stock market has seen selling from the outset, in line with most global stock indices in the last day. Investors continue to give US politician the benefit of the doubt, expecting a timely resolution to the budget impasse. However, if there are no meaningful signs of progress over the weekend market sentiment will likely shift next week. Funding the government's activities is a sideshow compared to the extension debt ceiling. If US lawmakers fail on this count, a debt default would have severe ramifications for global markets in the immediate future. Local stocks opened more than half a per cent lower after Wall Street suffered losses in the range of 1% for its leading indices.

Virgin Australia (VAH) rose by 0.5 per cent in early trade after Air New Zealand announced plans to raise its stake in airline to 25.9 per cent having received approval from Australian authorities. The Kiwi said it had received approval from the Australian Treasurer to lift its stake after gaining consent from the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Oil Search's Limited (ASX:OSH) has announced that its joint venture partner in its Papua New Guinea LNG project, Exxon Mobil, has completed financing arrangements. OSH said that Exxon subsidiary, Esso Highlands Ltd has raised $US1.5 billion of project financing which will be used to finance the debt component of the project cost increase, which was announced in November last year. Oil Search says the estimated cost of the project remains unchanged at $US19 billion and the project remains on track to deliver LNG in the second half of 2014. Oil Search delivered a net profit of $122.3 million in the first half of fiscal 2013.

The Australian dollar remains hostage to US dollar price movements. The Aussie dollar fell after figures overnight showed the number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits was much better than anticipated. The Greenbacks moves were reversed after a survey measuring activity in the US services sector (Institute for Supply Management survey) showed that activity in the US services sector contracted sharply in September after 2 months of expansion.

[Kick off your trading day with our newsletter]