Reuters: Hot Stocks: Australia shares seen weighed by falls in gold, copper

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Australia shares seen weighed by falls in gold, copper Feb 20th 2013, 22:50 MELBOURNE | Wed Feb 20, 2013 5:50pm EST MELBOURNE Feb 21 (Reuters) - Australian shares are set to open lower on Thursday after gold, equities and resource-linked currencies were all knocked lower by talk in global markets that a hedge fund had been liquidating positions in commodities. * Share price index futures fell 25 points to 5048.0, a 50.7-point discount to the underlying S&P/ASX 200 index. The benchmark rose 0.3 percent to a 4-1/2 year high on Wednesday. * New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index fell 0.2 percent to 4,205.8 in early trade. Reserve Bank of New Zealand Governor Graeme Wheeler said the currency was significantly overvalued. Investors scaled back the expected speed and scale of any NZ rate tightening. * Gold tumbled 2.5 percent to $1,564 an ounce and the Australian dollar slid 1 percent to $1.0245. * In contrast, iron ore prices extended their climb to reach a 14-month high at $158.90 a tonne .IO62-CNI=SI. The steel-making mineral is Australia's single biggest export earner. * Qantas Airways Ltd said first-half underlying profit before tax was A$223 million, beating expectations for A$216 million. Qantas said it would upgrade its entire fleet of Airbus A330s and order new Boeing 737-800s.. * ASX Ltd reported half-year underlying profit of A$171.1 million, down 5.3 percent. * Origin Energy Ltd posted a half-year underlying profit of A$362 million and said underlying profit for the financial year would fall 10 to 15 percent from a year ago. * Goodman Group Pty Ltd said full-year earnings would be 32.3 cents a share. * Brambles Ltd said full-year profit would be in a range of US$1.03 billion to US$1.06 billion. * Iluka Resources Ltd reported annual net profit of A$363.2 million, down from A$541.8 million a year earlier. * Echo Entertainment reported first half profit of A$66.5 million. * Newspaper publisher APN News and Media reported a A$455.8 million full year loss. * Fairfax Media Ltd said sales fell 7.1 percent in the first half on continuing weakness in real estate and the national advertising market. ----------------------MARKET SNAPSHOT @ 2229 GMT ------------ INSTRUMENT LAST PCT CHG NET CHG S&P 500 1511.95 -1.24% -18.990 USD/JPY 93.56 0.02% 0.020 10-YR US TSY YLD 2.0104 -- -0.017 SPOT GOLD 1562.8 0.03% 0.510 US CRUDE 94.46 -2.28% -2.200 DOW JONES 13927.54 -0.77% -108.13 ASIA ADRS 136.61 -1.12% -1.55 ------------------------------------------------------------- * Wall St slides as Fed minutes spark concern * Oil slumps with metals, sell stops triggered * Gold at lowest since July on Fed, hedge fund talk * Copper hits 1-month low, China traders still absent For a digest of the day's business stories in Australian newspapers, double click on (Reporting by Miranda Maxwell; Editing by John Mair) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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