Share lose ground, US official claims worst of the recession may be over: Economy roundup

The Australian sharemarket opened higher today after a positive lead from Wall Street, but has since dipped into negative territory.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 15 points or 0.4% to 3,728 at 12.15 AEST. The dollar remained steady at US71 cents.

ANZ shares gained 0.8% to $17.17, while NAB jumped 1.5% to $22.38. Commonwealth Bank lost 1.7% to $36.37, as Woolworths dropped 2.2% to $26.54.

OZ Minerals shares have gained nearly 4% to 65 cents after yesterday’s decision by the Federal Government to approve a $1.2 billion offer from Chinese group Minmetals to purchase assets.

Treasurer Wayne Swan approved the deal on the basis that about 2000 local jobs were kept safe. While an initial deal was blocked back in March, the new deal requires Minmetals to operate mines acquired from OZ Minerals as a separate business.

Minmetals will also have to comply with all Australian industrial relations laws.

Meanwhile, production at Woodside Petroleum has risen 20%, but revenue has dropped 1% to just $1.09 billion as a result of weaker commodity prices.

The company says it will slash 2009 expenditure by $600 million to between $6.6 billion and $6.7 billion. It will also shut down several liquefied natural gas production sites for a month during May.

“Quarterly production was higher than the previous corresponding period due to additional contributions from new projects,” the company said in a statement to the ASX.

“Although sales volumes increased by 21% compared to the previous corresponding period, adverse movements in commodity prices resulted in sales revenue that was 1% lower than that of the first quarter of 2008.”

The Crown Casino in Melbourne has discovered several counterfeit gambling chips and is attempting to check the authenticity of chips worth more than $13.7 million.

The casino has said that it has found $36,000 worth of fraudulent chips and has changed the colour of its $1000 chips to stop any more fraudulent behaviour.

“While doing routine checks, one of the officers detected what appeared to be fake $1000 chips,” casino spokesman Gary O’Neill told the Herald-Sun.

Overseas, Wall Street closed higher after some better-than-expected results from several of the country’s regional banks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 70.49 points or 0.89% to 7957.06.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has written in the Financial Times that the worst of the recession may be over, and that signs of recovery are starting to emerge, but challenges to the economy remain.

“In recent weeks, there have been some encouraging signs that the global economic downturn may be slackening,” he wrote. “Conditions in some financial markets have improved and the decline in world trade may be abating.”