Welcome to Thursday. Here are the five things I'm looking at today on the Australian sharemarket.
- The S&P/ ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) has opened 0.4% higher, following 0.6% gains on the US Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices overnight. But the big news appears to be the ongoing claims that multi-national corporations are paying less tax in Australia that they should. Fairfax newspapers report that IKEA Australia generates around $1 billion in revenues here, but pays virtually no tax. Google, Amazon, Starbucks and Aussie construction giant Lend Lease Limited (ASX: LLC) have all been implicated in the past as using tax havens to cut the amount of tax they pay in Australia.
- The Australian dollar was smashed overnight, losing 1.4 cents to currently trade around US 85.89 cents. RBA governor Glenn Stevens will be mighty happy at that, recently calling it 'overvalued'.It's also good news for Australian exporters, and will certainly ease a little of the pain our iron ore miners are feeling today. The spot iron ore price dropped 2% overnight to US$76.46 per tonne. Still, the falling dollar may not be enough to save some of the smaller, higher-cost miners. We've already seen a couple hit the wall, and others may well follow.
- Is Super Retail Group Ltd (ASX: SUL) in the sights of a global sporting giant? The Australian Financial Review certainly thinks so. Reporting today, the paper suggests that some Super Retail shareholders believe UK retailer Sports Direct or Intersport may be looking to buy a stake in Super Retail.Super Retail owns the two sports stores Rebel Sport and Amart, along with its automotive accessories chain Super Cheap Auto and its outdoors and camping businesses Rays Outdoors and BCF.
- Tweet of the Day
Aeeris Early Warning Network IPO by @sharecafetweets https://t.co/YuqRxZSZQM
On-Market BookBuilds (@OnMktBookBuilds) November 5, 2014
An interesting crowd-sourced weather and danger alert network. Can it make money though? - Stock of the Day – brought to you by Andrew Mudie – CSR Limited (ASX: CSR). The building materials group posted strong first half results yesterday, and Andrew asks whether it's worth buying shares in the company now. You can read more here.
