Australian Stock Market Report –Afternoon September 22, 2014

IN PHOTO: A metal sculpture depicting a stock exchange chart is seen in the reception hall of the Athens Bourse in Athens September 11, 2014. Greece on Thursday set the pricing on its offer to top up its recent three- and five-year bonds by about 1 billion euros (US$1.3 billion) and exchange them for outstanding T-bills instead of cash. Reuters/Yorgos Karahalis

Familiar themes prevail this week

 It was a quiet day for company and economic news today which left little for participants to be inspired by, apart from raw sentiment. The sellers maintained their sense of purpose throughout the day. The market closed down again making it day 11 of 14 in the red, with the ASX 200 closing at 5363 points down 66 points or 1.29 per cent.

 The themes remain similar to what was seen last week, with all sectors currently being influenced by the recent lower commodity prices, ongoing concerns of international conflict in the Middle East, and talk of increased interest rates in the US.

 In the absence of any material news sellers focussed their attention in the financials and miners. The NAB attracted headlines for new aggressive measures aimed at their lending - offering a $1000 dollar gift card to customerstaking out a mortgage of more than $300,000. This is an example of the aggressive strategies lenders are engaging in an effort to gain market share in the home lendingmarket. Strategies such as this beg the inevitable question of what this will ultimately mean for credit quality as lenders seek to take business away from their competitors.

 Prices on the Dalian Futures Exchange in China continue to haunt the resource sector. The exchange is watched carefully for the fact that it has one of the few quoted prices for an iron ore contract in the region. Prices remained on a slippery slope over the course of the day with the iron ore contract falling as much as 6 per cent in Asian time. Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (FMG) remained a lightning rod for seller with the shares closing down 4.7 per cent at$3.58. Over the course of the month so far the miner has lost in the range of 14 per cent. This compares to losses in the range of 5 per cent for competitors Rio Tinto (RIO) and BHP Billiton (BHP)

 The Australian dollar is currently trading at a low of US$0.8908 mainly due to the pressures on commodities prices. Today we experienced slightly lower volumes traded on the market with 1.9 billion shares exchanging hands worth a total of $4.65billion. Only 309 stocks finished higher, 672 closed in the red and 353 were unchanged.

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