Australian Stock Market Report – Midday September 9, 2014

Local shares recovering yesterday's falls

 The Australian sharemarket is making up for around half of yesterday's 0.36 per cent tumble following choppy global trade overnight. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) is up 0.2 per cent, with only the energy, industrial and tech industries losing ground. Markets are closed in Hong Kong and South Korea for holidays today. Hong Kong has the region's second biggest market while South Korea is Asia's seventh largest.

 The iron ore price remained unchanged overnight at US$83.6/t; down 38 per cent this calendar year and is trading at a five-year low. Junior miner Western Desert Areas (WDR) filed for voluntary administration yesterday after failing to receive sufficient financial backing from its banker Macquarie. WDR partly blamed the slump in iron ore price. BHP Billiton (BHP) and Rio Tinto (RIO) are both up around 0.3 per cent at lunch.

 The world's largest wooden pallets company, Brambles (BXB) has purchased a UK based supplier of containers to the offshore oil and gas industry called Ferguson Group for £320m (~A$555m). BXB trades ex-dividend for its 13.5cps final dividend tomorrow.

 Ex-dividend stocks aren't holding the market back today with no major market moving names trading ex. Village Roadshow (VRL) is down 3.2 per cent and will pay out a 14cps dividend and OZ Minerals (OZL) is down 1.9 per cent and will pay out a 10cps dividend. Biopharmaceutical company CSL is up 0.94 per cent and is making up for Monday's 1.7 per cent slide following it trading ex-dividend.

 Three of the four major banks are higher with National Bank (NAB) the exception as its slides 0.14 per cent. Telstra (TLS) continues to creep towards its highs reached a fortnight ago.

 On the economic front, business confidence has eased from a reading in July of 11.0 to 8.0 in August. A number above 0.0 still indicates a level of optimism. The report is based on a survey of around 350 businesses. Consumer confidence rose by 0.6 per cent last week according to a weekly survey on confidence. A report on monthly confidence will be released tomorrow. The retailers are mostly firmer mid-way through the session.

 The Australian dollar has fallen from yesterday's highs of US93.81c following speculation the Federal Reserve might change its forecasts for rates next week when the US central bank meets.

 At lunch, 1.02bn shares have been traded worth $1.41bn. 444 stock are up, 368 are down and 332 are unchanged.

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