Not bad for a penny dreadful...getting some press...Australian...

Not bad for a penny dreadful...getting some press...


Australian stocks lower at noon April 14, 2011 - 12:39PM
.AAP

The Australian stock market was lower at noon, weighed down by weakness in the industrials, metals and mining, and materials sectors.

Construction giant Leighton Holdings' sharp decline after resuming trading, following a downgrade in its earnings guidance and proposed capital raising, also was a negative for the local bourse.

At 1211 AEST, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 45.7 points, or 0.93 per cent, at 4,865.3 points.

Advertisement: Story continues below The broader All Ordinaries index had fallen 45.8 points, or 0.92 per cent, to 4,953.8 points.

On the ASX 24, the June share price index futures contract was 34 points lower at 4,879 points, with 20,754 contracts traded.

The local market opened about 0.3 per cent weaker and extended losses through the morning.

Sectors posting the largest falls included industrial, which was off 1.6 per cent, according to IRESS data.

Metals and mining stocks were down 1.4 per cent, while materials-linked companies also were 1.4 per cent weaker.

Leighton was the worst-performing stock on the S&P/ASX50, falling 13.1 per cent, by $3.70, to $24.60, trading at levels not seen since July 2009.

The company entered a trading halt last week, before announcing on Monday it expected to post a full year loss in 2010/11 for the first time in 25 years, and would undertake a $757 million capital raising to repair its balance sheet.

Cameron Securities client adviser Adrian Leppinus said the slumping Leighton share price was no surprise.

"I think the market is quite disappointed in one bad thing after another, and a big discounted issue is not going to help things," Mr Leppinus said.

"They did auction the rights off at $24.50 and the stock seems to be supported around that level."

The big miners were off more than one per cent, with some market players disappointed with Rio's quarterly production report, published on Wednesday afternoon.

"It was a little bit below expectations," Mr Leppinus said of the Rio report.

BHP Billiton was down 77 cents, around 1.5 per cent, at $47.81, while Rio Tinto had slipped 96 cents , or 1.1 per cent, to $84.75.

The major retail banks were weaker, too. ANZ fell 27 cents to $24.05, CBA had declined 42 cents to $52.47, NAB was down 11 cents at $26.33 and Westpac also was 11 cents lower at $24.79.

In financial news, regional lender Bank of Queensland (BOQ) said net profit for the first half of fiscal 2011 slumped 45 per cent due to an increase in bad debts. BOQ was up 14 cents, or 1.4 per cent, at $9.91.

The spot price of gold in Sydney was $US1,457.20 per ounce, down $US1.15 from Wednesday's local close of $US1,458.35.

Newcrest Mining was off 53 cents at $40.48, while Kingsgate Consolidated was 35 cents weaker, by more than four per cent, at $7.88.

Mr Leppinus expected the market to remain in the red into the close.

"It's only gotten worse as the day has gone on so I would be surprised if we saw any meaningful bounce in the market from these levels," Mr Leppinus said.

The most traded stock by volume was Datamotion Asia Ltd, with 138.7 million securities changing hands for $563,590.

Datamotion, whose last announcement to the market was a company presentation on April l2, was steady at four-tenths of a cent.

National turnover was 1.3 billion securities worth $2.3 billion, with 418 stocks trading higher, 517 lower and 387 unchanged.

http://www.businessday.com.au/breaking-news-business/australian-stocks-lower-at-noon-20110414-1deiv.html