News Corp Slide
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday May 9, 1998
A slide in News Corp shares combined with a weaker resources sector pushed the Australian share market slightly lower yesterday.
Solid rises in the banking, insurance and building indexes helped offset the damage.
The benchmark all ordinaries index recovered to close just 0.3 points softer at 2780.5, off its intra-day low of 2757.9.
On Thursday night the Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 78 points to 8976.68, down more than 200 points from Monday's record high of 9192.66.
"Sentiment was fairly cautious today following on from the US. News Corp was weaker on further analysis of their (third quarter profit) result," Shaw Stockbroking's Jamie Spiteri said yesterday.
Disappointment with the quality of News Corp's higher earnings saw US investors dump the media giant's stock on Thursday night, prompting the local market to follow suit yesterday.
News Corp's ordinary shares finished 31? or 2.9 per cent worse at $10.32 and its non-voting preferred stock was 22? or 2.4 per cent off at $8.98.
News Corp's fall pushed the media index 435 points, or two per cent, down to 21,352.6.
The all industrials index still managed to add 8.9 points to close at 4793.6, however, lower commodity prices on Thursday night saw the resources index dip 9.4 points to 1169.8.
Among other media stocks, PBL gained 3? to $7.65, Seven eased 3? to $5.53, and Southern Cross Broadcasting jumped 19?, or 2.8 per cent, to $6.99 on very light turnover.
Telstra Corp's instalment receipts ended 4? down at $3.65, topping turnover with 25.847 million traded at a value of $94.44 million.
Shares in fellow telco AAPT rose 10? to $3.50 with analysts pointing to renewed rumours that an equity deal with British Telecom was close.
Lend Lease forfeited 15? to $36.65, Coca-Cola Amatil climbed 4? to $12.20, Wesfarmers added 16? to $13.60, paper group Amcor rose 20? to $7.20, Pioneer International firmed 9? to $4.42, CSR moved up 6? to $4.96, Boral found 5? to close at $3.48, Woolworths ended 1? better at $5.56 and Coles Myer rose 3? to $7.58.
Shares in Chip Application Technologies Ltd ended 5? stronger at 40? on news that its smart card software was likely to be used on Telstra Corp Ltd's next generation of smart cards through the software designer's work with Dutch-based Chipper.
Resources giant BHP fell to $14 about noon before recovering most of its losses to close just half a cent softer at $14.195.
© 1998 Illawarra Mercury
Share This