The Australian sharemarket is currently up slightly after a flat start to the day. The All Ordinaries index (XAO) is up 0.1pct or 5.6pts to 4866.5. Financial shares are helping to keep the market in the green with the big banks up at least 0.5pct.

Global ratings agency, Fitch Ratings said that Australia's major banks are strong enough to be able to handle a serious downturn in the Australian mortgage market. Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Westpac (WBC), and ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) are all up around 1pct.

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Australia's largest supermarket chain, Woolworths (WOW) is off by 2.5pct or 69cents to $26.77 after downgrading its earnings guidance for the full year. On a positive note, WOW's second quarter sales came in at $14.39 billion which was a 4pct rise on the corresponding period last year.

The world's largest miner, BHP Billiton (BHP) is currently flat while the third largest miner, RIO Tinto (RIO) is up 0.52pct or 44cents to $84.82 after RIO's $3.9 billion bid for mining company, Riversdale Mining (RIV), received a boost today thanks all of RIV's board recommending the takeover. RIV intends to develop as a diversified mining house.

Australian-based, global beverage company, Fosters (FGL), is up 4.18pct or 23cents to $5.73 after the world's second largest brewer, SABMiller has apparently overcome legal and commercial hurdles preventing it from making a bid for FGL.

Quarterly PPI (Producer Price Index) numbers came in lower than expected at 0.1pct in the December quarter which takes the annual rate to 2.7pct. PPI measures the change in the price of finished goods and services sold by producers. These figures are important as they are released one day ahead of the CPI (Consumer Price Index). More details will be released with the closing report this afternoon.

The Australian dollar (AUD) eased following the lower than expected PPI earlier today.

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