Virgin Blue Holdings Limited

Asian Activities Report for December 1, 2011 includes: Asahi Group Holdings Ltd (TYO:2502) has conditionally agreed to acquire Mountain H2O Pty Ltd, a bottled water company in Australia that produces high quality spring water; China Longyuan Power Group Corporation Limited (HKG:0916) has received governmental approval for the 49.5 megawatt Shaanxi Qingling Guanritai Wind Power Project; Virgin Blue Holdings Limited (ASX:VBA) and Singapore Airlines (SIN:C6L) will enter into an integrated network aviation alliance; Nufarm Limited (ASX:NUF) has completed the acquisition of Seeds 2000, Inc., a sunflower seed research and production company in USA.

Australian shares opened flat this morning. Wall Street overnight closed in the red despite the US market pared most of its early losses after news of halted flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The losses were caused by disappointing economic data including inflation figures, manufacturing in New York and industrial production across the country.

Slump in Australian mining shares dragged the local market lower this morning over worries that a newly unveiled tax on the resources industry could hurt the miners' profits. The drop in local market was also led by the negative lead from US market. Asian stocks also delivered a weak start on Monday. China's central bank on Sunday raised banks' reserve requirement ratio by 50 basis points to further control the property prices. Chinese markets are closed today for Labour Day holiday.

Virgin Blue Holidngs (ASX:VBA) and Air New Zealand (NZE:AIR) confirmed that the two carriers have been in ongoing discussions for several months regarding commercial cooperation on Trans Tasman markets, but no agreement has been reached.

The Australian market declined for a fifth consecutive session on Thursday, even after a stronger-than-expected labour force report. The falls were led by resources shares and consumer discretionary. At the close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index dropped 31.2 points, or 0.7 per cent, at 4606.7 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index lost 29.7 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 4622.9 points.

Overnight Wall Street posed a solid gain as an upbeat sentiment that the worst is over increased investors' appetite for riskier assets. The shares were lifted by a round of buying in financial shares and a jump in US industrial production data.

Wall Street overnight extended its losses after a disappointing non-farm payrolls report in August, which raised concerns over the coming key reports on employment this week. US private sector slashed 298,000 jobs in August, a faster rate than economists' forecast.

US stocks closed flat overnight after a weaker-than-expected survey on consumer confidence. The Conference Board reported its confidence index fell to 46.6 from 49.3 in June, primarily due to a worsening job market.

US stocks rose on Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank is winding down its emergency lending programs established to end the financial crisis.

Wall Street finished mixed overnight. Dow and S&P 500 indices ended their rising streak while Nasdaq posted its 11th straight rise led by Apple and Yahoo. Investors started to lock in their profits from a series of rallies driven by earnings reports.