- Australia is status quo ahead of the U.S. jobs numbers, with weak miners offsetting some gains elsewhere.
With hard commodities softening overnight, we have BHP Billiton down 0.9% , Oz Minerals down 0.8%, and Atlas Iron down 0.6%. The often-volatile gold miners are seeing heftier losses, with Evolution down 4.1%, Kingsgate down 3.8%, and Newcrest down 1.5%. On the other hand, Fortescue is managing a 0.4% gain.
The financials are more of a mixed bag this morning: ANZ and NAB are each up 0.2%, while CBA is up 0.4%, and Westpac is down 0.1%.
Ah, but then there’s Macquarie — the investment bank posted an almost 50% jump in net profit for the year through March, but it’s getting no love on the market. Shares are down 1.3%, possibly due to its outlook suggesting earnings this year will show little growth.
Then again, it may be karma for Macquarie: It just downgraded mall developer Westfield to neutral from outperform, with Westfield shares currently down 1.1%.