If you thought the market shakeup triggered by Greece's potential expulsion from the European Union is over following yesterday's stellar rally – think again.
The futures market is pointing to a 0.4% slide in the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) this morning on mixed offshore leads as Greece faces a Sunday deadline to offer an austerity plan that creditors will accept or face being kicked out of the Eurozone.
Our market chalked up a 1.9% surge on Tuesday on the hope that the Greek crisis is well contained but I think we will have to put up with more volatility for the next few days at least.
Resource stocks will likely be leading the falls today as commodity prices took a beating overnight. Iron ore's crash to under $US50 a tonne will steal the spotlight and put the likes of Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX: FMG) and Rio Tinto Limited (ASX: RIO) under pressure.
The steel making ingredient slumped for the ninth straight session as it lost 5.1% to $49.60 a tonne and some forecasters are predicting it will fall to around $US40 a tonne as the market will be oversupplied until 2017.
But the pain will be shared with the rest of the resources sector, including gold miner Newcrest Mining Limited (ASX: NCM) and copper producer OZ Minerals Limited (ASX: OZL), with the gold price tumbling 1.8% to $US1,153 an ounce and copper tanking 3.6% to $US2.45 a pound.
It will be interesting to see how the market reacts to OceanaGold Corporation's (ASX: OGC) positive drilling results at the Macraes gold field that were released this morning.
In a further sign of an earnings slowdown facing our banks, Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ASX: ANZ) have tightened lending rules for investor property loans, according to Bloomberg.
Westpac is lowering its loan-to-value ratio to 80% from 95% for investors and ANZ dropped the maximum amount it is willing to lend to 90% of the property value from 97% but said interest rates on investor loans will not fall below 7.25% compared with variable mortgage rate of 5.38%.
ANZ said this is to ensure investors can keep repaying loans when interest rates increase.
Online jobs classified SEEK Limited (ASX: SEK) will also be in focus as it is believed to be readying an initial public offer for its joint venture IDP Education Australia business, while gas utility APA Group (ASX: APA) has appointed Morgan Stanley to help with its bid on the Iona gas plant reports the Australian Financial Review.
There's also reports of strong interest from Chinese government-banked infrastructure groups for Australian infrastructure, according to the AFR, and the news comes hot on the heels of Brookfield's takeover proposal for port owner Asciano Ltd (ASX: AIO).
These Chinese buyers are believed to be interested in liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline projects like the ones running from LNG plants owned by Origin Energy Limited (ASX: ORG) and Santos Ltd (ASX: STO).
