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US opens strong as Tesla decides

Published: 01:09 05 Sep 2014 AEST

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US markets opened higher on Thursday, while European stocks were also holding their own.

The big corporate story was US electric car wonder stock Tesla.

After months of speculation, Nevada was set to be confirmed as the location for the firm's new US$5bn lithium battery factory that will power the firm's ambitious plans to build and sell 500,000 electric cars a year.

The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average added 79 points to stand at 17,158, while the Nasdaq added 29 points to 4,602. 

The S&P 500 gained 10 points to stand at 2,011, which is another record high.

Also in investors’ minds today was private sector jobs, as payroll firm ADP's private survey data showed that 204,000 jobs were added last month (August), down from 212,000 in July. 

This is basically an almost no change scenario, which pointed to stability in the jobs market, according to market watchers.

Europe's ailing economy was back in the spotlight this afternoon as the ECB cut interest rates even further in a bid to get the eurozone out of the doldrums.

Europe’s central bank had been the first to introduce negative rates earlier this year for banks parking money in its vaults. It cut the benchmark rate to 0.15% in June from 0.25%. Now it has cut that back to 0.05%.

The news hit the Euro hard which fell against the US dollar, while in London, Footsie was up around 19 points at 6,892 nudging ever closer to that 6,930 all time high number.

Standard Life (LON:SL.) led the risers after it unveiled a £1.75bn share buyback worth about 73p per share.

Among the biggest losers was fund supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HL.), which shed 3.82% to stand at 1,032p.

It came as the shares were rated a 'sell' by City firm Liberum, which expressed concerns over pressure on margins and profits. Liberum said the financial business "does not justify" a price to earnings of 30 times.

On the winning front, fashion brand SuperGroup (LON:SGP) added over 10% as it revealed a better than expected trading update. Like-for-like (LFL) sales in the first quarter of the company’s fiscal year fell less than expected.

Aminex (LON:AEX) rose 9.71% as it raised its estimate of the Ntorya discovery at Ruvuma in Tanzania by almost 60% after reworking existing data, boosting hopes it may attract a farm-out partner.

“The new interpretation shows that Likonde and Ntorya are connected  at the Cretaceous level and based on the recent 2014 seismic programme, management [average] estimates of the resources have increased from 1.2 Tcf to 1.9 Tcf ,” the company said.

Jay Bhattacherjee, Aminex’s chief executive, added: "We are highly encouraged by the results from the seismic programme.

Partner Solo Oil (LOB;SOLO) did even better with its hsres rising by 23% .

Also wanted were shares in Armadale Capital (LON:ACP) after latest drilling at its Mpokoto gold project in the DRC confirmed a new mineralisation zone close to the surface.

President Energy (LON:PPC) shares rose on “very encouraging” follow-up data from the first of a three well programme in Paraguay.

Australian Strategic Materials signs US$600 million LoI

Rowena Smith, CEO and managing director of Australian Strategic Materials Ltd (ASX:ASM, OTC:ASMMF), joins Jonathan Jackson in the Proactive studio to discuss the company’ s Dubbo Project, in Central West New South Wales. This project aims to extract and process critical minerals and rare earth...

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