Australian Stock Market Report – Midday 1/14/14

Sellers have been mobilised from the outset in today's session and have encountered little resistance from buyers along the way in early trade. The fall on Wall Street overnight has been too difficult to look through for local investors. The US Fed will be undeterred in relation to tapering despite the weak reading for US jobs growth according to comments made by the President of the Atlanta Fed overnight.

Any belief that the ASX 200 might find a floor sooner rather than later (around 5275) was abandoned quickly as the market continued to fall in the face of volumes remaining slight.

Mining services were amongst the worst performing groups of 2013. Any hopes for a revival of sentiment in 2014 were dealt another blow this morning. Forge Group (FGE) came out of a trading halt by announcing a write-down in the range of $23mln to 28mln driven by the West Angelas Power Station. A short time ago the shares were down by 14%

Gold stocks are one of the few areas immune to the selling on Tuesday. The price of the precious metal has consolidated in the area around $US 1250 an ounce in the face of a softer US dollar. Newcrest Mining (NCM) is ahead by 0.6%, Saint Barbara Limited (SBM) is up 1.5%

Another port in a storm has been nickel miners. The recent re-rating has helped producers of the metal after the Indonesian mineral ore export ban which became effective on 12 January. The Indonesian curbs on nickel exports are hoped to encourage onshore processing, despite concerns that lower export receipts will compound a growing trade deficit and weakening rupiah. Western Areas (WSA) continue its strong rung in morning trade rising by 3.5%

GPT Group (GPT) is up more than 1%. The property operator said will not increase or extend its offer for the Commonwealth Property Office Fund (CPA). GPT´s is offering 0.141 GPT securities and 75.32 cents in cash for each CPA unit. The offer will remain open until January 24.

Keep an eye on the Aussie dollar. The belief the that Fed's tapering ambitions will be undeterred by the softer reading on US jobs will likely see the Greenback recover its recent losses.

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