Crikey

The market is down 62. The SFE Futures were down 54 this morning.

Wall Street fell 100 overnight. Dow up 28 at best and down 101 at worst. Weaker than expected consumer confidence numbers did most of the damage. Came in at 46 compared to expectations of 54.8. Metals were mostly down, oil fell 1.15% to $79.05 and Gold dropped $9 to $1103. The Aussie dollar fell to 89.17c from 90c yesterday morning.

Main results today:

• Asciano (AIO) — Good Results; FY earnings to be at top end of guidance — Underlying EBITDA of $368.2m, above consensus of around $335m.
• Woodside Petroleum (WPL) — in line with expectations — Announced a $1.82bn FY result, slightly ahead of the $1.8bn expected. Reiterated 2010 production guidance. No significant news on the progress of three LNG projects.
• IRESS Market Technology (IRE) — Slightly ahead of expectations  — Net profit (before significant items) up 14% to $52.3m compared to expectations of $50.3m. Declared a final dividend of 21c.
• Suncorp-Metway (SUN) — Middle of guidance — 1H net profit came in at $364m, guidance was for $355m-$375m.
• Austar (AUN) — Missed target subscriber numbers — FY net profit of $58.8m was in line with expectations but they failed to hit its target of 750,000 subscribers. No specific guidance was given for 2010.
• Macarthur Coal (MCC) — within guidance — 1H net profit of $39.6m, within guidance of $37m-$42m.
• Transfield Services (TSE) — slightly below — 1H net profit of $40m, 5% below Patersons forecasts.

In other news…

• Gildalbie Metals (GBG) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with their JV partner, Chinese iron ore and steel company Ansteel. They will target new resource development opportunities in Australian outside of the Karara iron ore project. GBG down 1.5c to 100.5c
• Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NWS) has expanded into the Middle East after the Prince’s Saudi-based entertainment company Rotana announced News Corp bought a 9.09% stake in the Rotana Group for $77.8m. NWS down 8c to 1771c.
• Wotif.com (WTF) has hit a fresh 52 week high. Up 6c to 756c.

The Dow Future were strong>down 15 at midday.

MARCUS PADLEY is the Author of the MARCUS TODAY Daily Stockmarket Newsletter.

For a free 5 day obligation free trial of the MARCUS TODAY newsletter (and no we won’t ask for a credit card number) please Click Here 00 you will receive our renowned and popular Daily email about the stockmarket with all the stuff you need to know ahead of the trading day including overnight developments, news, comments, rumours, broker stuff and Ideas from Marcus and his Team. You will also be given a password to the MARCUS TODAY website including access to our Recommended Portfolio which is actively managed on behalf of subscribers.…no “set & forget”. Everything you need to effortlessly managed your own long term investment portfolio.

It includes an Income Portfolio. And for the traders we monitor short and medium term trades on top of the portfolio. Members also get access to our Database 00 all the numbers with comments on the ASX 200 stocks and more. Members also get access to our Educational section which includes an archive of Marcus’s Educational and Entertaining articles.  We are sure you will enjoy and profit from what we offer. Thousands of subscribers enjoy and profit from our services every day. We have one of the highest re-subscription rates in the financial newsletter industry.

For your FREE TRIAL — Click here

To Subscribe to MARCUS TODAY — Click Here

We also offer a FREE END OF DAY EMAIL — Click here — A free summary of the day in the market.

To buy MARCUS’S BOOK “Stock Market Secrets” — Click here