Australian Stock Market Report – Midday October 14, 2014

An office worker talks on his phone as he looks the stock board at the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) building in central Sydney June 15, 2012. Asian shares edged up on Friday, and the euro held most of the previous session's gains, as nervous investors took comfort from plans for coordinated action by major central banks to stabilise markets if Sunday's election in Greece results in turmoil. Reuters

 US shares slumped overnight in thin holiday trade. The Dow Jones fell by 1.4 per cent while the broader S&P500 dropped by 1.7 per cent. Investors are holding their breath for a barrage of profit results from some of America's biggest banks this week. Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo are all scheduled to issue third quarter results tonight.

 Iron ore rose strongly overnight thanks to a bigger than expected jump in Chinese exports and imports last month. The stronger ore price is helping lift the heavily sold mining stocksby 2 per cent. The resource space is by far the biggest improver at lunch. The world's largest miner BHP Billiton (BHP) is up 2.2 per cent, Rio Tinto (RIO) is up 2.9 per cent and Fortescue Metals (FMG) is surging by 5.7 per cent. Over the next few days RIO, FMG and Woodside Petroleum (WPL) will all issue their Q3 production updates to the market.

 OZ Minerals (OZL) is up 8.1 per cent following the release of its quarterly numbers. Copper production rose by 18 per cent to 26,249/mt while gold output also gained strongly. OZL shares are up 26 per cent this calendar year following a 52 per cent slump in 2103.

 Annual General Meetings are also in focus today with Telstra (TLS) and ear implant maker Cochlear (COH) two of the biggest names to meet with investors. TLS which posted a $4.3bn FY14 profit admits while progress has been made on customer service, much work still needs to be done to provide an outstanding experience to clients.

 Economic news today has attracted some attention. The results from the NAB business confidence survey highlighted a little more pessimism in the corporate sector last month. Confidence fell from +7.5 to +4.9 in September. Despite the read sitting at around a six-month low a number above 0.0 still indicates a level of optimism. Weekly consumer confidence improved by 1.1 per cent last week.

 Volumes are a touch light at lunch with 677.7m shares traded worth $1.8bn. 403 stocks are up, 334 are in the red and 308 are unchanged.

 The Australian dollar has slipped slightly to US$0.874 and €0.687. A strengthening greenback since the start of September has been a major drag on local shares over the past four weeks.

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