Australasian Investment Review (AIR) is a free daily news service with a weekly online magazine covering global financial markets with a focus on Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
The Reserve Bank cut interest rates by 1% to 4.25%, thus undoing all the tightening of the past seven years and taking rates back to where they were in December 2001.
Figures released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics left growth estimates for the September quarter just as confused as they were before the release.
A savage sell off in BHP Billion and Rio Tinto shares here yesterday after global oil and copper prices fell after Monday's spate of gloomy economic news, and the admission that the US economy had been in recession for the past year.
Metcash, the country's third force in supermarkets and the dominant independent group, is expecting no change in its outlook after lifting earnings and sales solidly in the tough first half of 2008-09.
Qantas shares will soar today after British Airways said overnight Tuesday it is "exploring a potential merger" with Australian rival Qantas Airways as part of a broad tie-up in the struggling aviation sector.
The market is down 125 points after heavy falls on Wall Street on the back of poor manufacturing data and official recognition of the recession. Resources copping it – down 6% after recent outperformance – BHP and RIO down 7% and 8% on the open. Oz Minerals has said it will remain in a trading halt for a month as it desperately negotiates the refinancing of $560m in debt. Fortescue Metals down 10.5% after yesterday's 21% rally. Property stocks down 4.1%. Financials down 3.2% following a 17% fall in US financials on miserable forecasts about massive reductions in the availability of credit card debt.
First Australia, then China's manufacturing sector had a horror October according to survey results released yesterday.
Agribusiness group Futuris is changing its name, revamping its business to generate more cash; but will incur more losses in doing so.
Investors have Leighton Holdings a whack yesterday after it revealed that work on a $600 million-plus project in Dubai had stopped.
Struggling investment bank, Babcock & Brown expects to be able to make an announcement on discussions with its banks by tomorrow.
