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After looking a tad iffy in early trade, shares enjoyed a leg higher in afternoon trade, underpinned by solid buying in the big banks and Macquarie.
The ASX 200 added 9 points to 5922 after an indifferent Wall St lead where investors were unimpressed by Trump's one-page tax plan.
In a pretty evenly divided index, the major lenders made the difference. CBA added 0.6 per cent, NAB and ANZ 0.8 per cent, and Westpac 1 per cent. Macquarie added another 1 per cent to $92.28 a share and are less than $5 off an all-time high ($96.50 pre-GFC).
Miners were lower, with Fortescue off 3.2 per cent. But South32 added 1.1 per cent after its quarterly update.
Qantas soared 5 per cent after a broker said the airline operator should be able to return cash to its investors via a share buyback.
There was plenty of corporate news. Ten shares plunged 19 per cent after it unveiled a half-year loss and said there were "material concerns" around its future.
Wesfarmers lost 1.5 per cent after a trading update showed Coles losing ground to Woolies, which was flat for the day..
Stockland and Mirvac added 0.6 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively, after providing upbeat numbers to investors.
Gold miners had a bit of a bounce after being on the nose over the past couple of days, but the biggest, Newcrest, dropped 1.8 per cent on its quarterly update as it provided a quarterly production update and said its energy costs are about to double (!).
Speaking of energy prices, Santos plunged 5.5 per cent and Origin 3.6 per cent after the government said it was going to force these companies to put aside gas at a reasonable price for domestic users.
Outgoing Wesfarmers managing director Richard Goyder has renewed calls for big corporate tax cuts, saying Australia risks losing investment to the United States and Britain if tax rates are not competitive.
Mr Goyder, the chairman-elect of Woodside Petroleum and a director of the Business Council of Australia, said US President Trump's plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 15 per cent compared "very very favourably" to Australia's 30 per cent tax rate for businesses with turnover of more than $50 million.
"It really is going to necessitate the Australian government to do something about this," Mr Goyder told journalists after reporting weaker than expected sales at most of Wesfarmers' retail businesses in the March quarter.
"The government's got a plan to reduce corporate tax rates to 25 per cent - that will really only put us in the game," Mr Goyder said.
"The Senate has not been that helpful to date on that - if people don't think that capital is now global they're kidding themselves."
"What the US is doing will encourage investment and job creation in the US, and we've seen the same in the UK and I suspect we'll see more of that," he said.
"Australia is going to have to move with it."
PwC chief executive Luke Sayers said President Trump has confirmed his intent to use tax reform as a "weapon to drive jobs and economic growth".
"By reducing the tax burden on businesses he is backing both small and big businesses to invest, employ more people and grow the economy.
"It is a very real reminder of the highly competitive global landscape Australia competes in and how starkly different our tax regime is becoming to others.
"We spent months debating a small reduction in tax rates and even then the government couldn't secure support to extend the reduction to all businesses.
"We have to open our eyes to external threats and stop letting short-term politics get in the way of our country's long term future success and prosperity. The government must continue to prosecute tax reform."
Australia's housing market cycle continues to turn, with the latest CoreLogic figures likely to show price growth flat-lined in April as Sydney marked its first monthly decline since December 2015.
Full-month figures due to be released on Monday will show the country's peak growth phase has passed, CoreLogic head of research Asia Pacific Tim Lawless said on Thursday.
"The CoreLogic hedonic home value index has virtually held steady over the first twenty-seven days of the month for the five city aggregate index, with a subtle fall in Sydney values over the month to date," Mr Lawless said.
"Recent regulatory changes aimed at slowing the pace of investment and interest-only lending have pushed mortgage rates slightly higher and slowed the pace of investment demand. These changes appear to be having a dampening effect on housing market conditions."
The figures, which have still to be confirmed, would mark a slamming on the brakes of the market in Sydney, which CoreLogic said jumped 1.4 per cent in March alone - up 18.9 per cent over the 12-month period - and driving the five-city average to its highest annualised growth rate since 2010 of 12.9 per cent.
Any sign that the regulator-driven curbs - strengthened last month - on property lending are cooling the market will come as a great relief to policy makers, as political pressure is growing for government to ease the rampant growth in prices that is increasingly pushing home purchase beyond the reach of many people.
The picture isn't clear, however. Housing affordability worsened over the year to March and will deteriorate further as record-low interest rates keep pushing prices up by more than wages, a Moody's report this week said. Others, such as analysts at investment bank UBS, this week called the top of the housing market in terms of both market activity and price growth and said a moderation in both would follow.
Monday's report, which will include figures for the five mainland capitals, is consistent with figures last week from CoreLogic that home values rose just 0.3 per cent between 20 March and 20 April.
President Donald Trump has ruled out immediately terminating the US's participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement, the White House said, after US outlets on Wednesday reported he was considering doing so through an executive order.
The White House said said the US president spoke with the leaders of Mexico and Canada recently, and "both conversations were pleasant and productive".
"President Trump agreed not to terminate NAFTA at this time and the leaders agreed to proceed swiftly, according to their required internal procedures, to enable the renegotiation of the NAFTA deal to the benefit of all three countries," the White House said in a statement.
Mexico's peso and Canada's dollar jumped after the White House's announcement. The peso was up 1.1 percent as of 11:22 p.m. in New York, recouping more than half of its 1.7 percent drop on Wednesday. The Canadian currency advanced 0.6 percent, halting a four-day decline.
Trump's top advisers had been embroiled in a debate over how aggressively to proceed on reshaping U.S. participation in NAFTA, with hard-liners favouring a threatened withdrawal as soon as this week and others advocating for a more measured approach to reopening negotiations with Canada and Mexico.
Some of Trump's advisers wanted a dramatic move before Trump's 100th day in office on Saturday to fulfill a key campaign promise, while others said he could let the milestone pass and revisit the issue later through more formal procedures, according to two White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The stories about a NAFTA withdrawal could have had something to do with the Australian dollar's weak overnight showing, said OANDA senior trader Stephen Innes, as it was a "commodity currency" highly exposed to global trade.
President Trump must give Congress 90 days notice that he seeks to renegotiate the accord. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Tuesday the administration is busy working with lawmakers to kick start renegotiation of the deal. He did say the U.S. was embarking on a more muscular strategy for trade-enforcement.
The administration has blamed NAFTA for hollowing out America's manufacturing sector by relocating jobs to lower-cost Mexico.
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The dollar's potential loss of its status as a high-yielding currency could cause the Aussie to plunge to US62¢, forcing the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates despite still-weak domestic growth, said one of Asia's most prominent currency strategists.
Australia has historically had to offer higher interest rates to attract foreign capital into the country. But the country's yield advantage is disappearing. The yield differential between 10-year US and Australian government bonds has shrunk to less than 30 basis points, the tightest in around 15 years, as the US engages in monetary tightening while the RBA appears set to keep rates steady at 1.5 per cent.
The weak consumer economy makes it difficult for the RBA to raise interest rates. But this makes Australia less attractive as a location for investment, weakening the demand for the Aussie dollar.
This should be a serious concern for Australian policy-makers, TD Securities' chief Asia-Pacific macro strategist Annette Beacher told the Australian Financial Review, as many foreign investors are primarily attracted to the high-yield status of the local currency.
"We're spending a bit too much time saying inflation isn't high, therefore the RBA doesn't need to hike. We all know the RBA wants a lower currency. But you have to be careful what you wish for. If the Fed hikes three or four times, and the RBA sits tight, we won't be high-yield. That doesn't mean the Aussie falls to 72¢. It means it collapses to 62¢. And think of the inflation shock that would cause."
Tuesday's inflation figures triggered a sustained sell-off of the Aussie dollar that only gathered steam overnight as global traders digested the figures. After dropping as much as a penny on Wednesday night to a three-month low of US74.55¢, the Aussie recovered through Thursday to fetch US74.86¢ in afternoon trade.
The first quarter's 0.5 per cent quarterly inflation figure took annual inflation to 2.1 per cent, just within the RBA's 2 to 3 per cent target band.
But the inflation figures were slightly weaker than economists' expectations. Ms Beacher said some traders were after "an excuse", with many viewing the dollar as too high given the lowering interest rate differential.
"I'm not convinced the [Reserve Bank] is looking solely at inflation," she said. "We need higher interest rates compared to the rest of the world."
"I think the Fed will continue to hike, economy will gain traction, and US treasury yields will rise, and Australia will have to work harder to attract offshore capital."
In the wake of yesterday's inflation figures, which showed a move from "extremely low inflation to low inflation", Capital Economics is no longer forecasting any interest rate cuts this year and even expects a cut, with rates possibly not rising until 2019.
"Interest rates are still more likely to fall this year than rise and we doubt that rates will increase next year at all," wrote its chief Australian economist Paul Dales.
The economics forecaster now expects the RBA to cut rates to 1 per cent, from 1.5 per cent currently, in the second half of the year.
"The bottom line is that, while we now believe the most likely scenario is that rates remain at 1.5%, the chances of further rate cuts this year are certainly higher than the chances of hikes. And subdued economic growth and low underlying inflation probably mean that the RBA won't be in a position to raise interest rates next year either.
"That implies there is some scope for market interest rate expectations to fall back, albeit not as much as we previously thought. This explains why we now believe that the Australian dollar won't weaken as much. A further drop back in iron ore prices and more rises in interest rates in the US than expected will still drag it down. But whereas we previously thought it could fall from US$0.75 to US$0.65 by this December, we now think that a weakening to US$0.70 or just below is more likely.
The forecaster is now sitting close to market pricing, which is forecasting no chance of an interest rate movement next week, and small odds of a rate cut in the second half of the year.
Traders aren't pricing in an interest rate hike before early next year.
The strongest annual rise in export prices in eight years is potentially a bonus for Treasurer Scott Morrison as he puts together his May federal budget.
Figures released on Thursday showed exports of Australia's key commodities have given another lift to the terms of trade.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics international trade price indexes showed exports jumped 9.4 per cent in the March quarter for an annual rate of 29.1 per cent, the biggest increase since March 2009.
In contrast, imports rose by a more modest 1.2 per cent in the quarter and fell 0.6 per cent over the year.
JP Morgan economist Tom Kennedy says export strength is across Australia's major export commodities, with prices paid for metal ores, gas and coal moving sharply higher.
The June quarter results are more difficult to predict because of the contrasting price action in iron ore and coal, he says.
During April, iron ore prices have moved sharply lower and are close to 30 per cent below March's peak, while supply-side disruptions associated with Queensland's devastating cyclones have resulted in coal prices nearly doubling.
Mr Morrison told a conference in Sydney on Thursday that navigating the volatility in commodity prices was a key challenge for his May 9 budget.
"Given the uncertain nature of commodity prices, it's important to continue to have conservative and credible judgements behind our forecasts," he told an Australian Business Economists lunch, his last set-piece event before the budget.
"Any positive surprises that may eventuate go straight to budget repair rather than being used to fund new spending initiatives."
The treasurer estimates the impact of Cyclone Debbie will subtract a quarter of a percentage point from growth in the June quarter because of the widespread damage in Queensland and northern NSW, which caused supply disruptions for coal and certain crops.
But Mr Morrison believes there is a greater sense of optimism in the global economic outlook as he puts together his second budget.
The Bank of Japan has kept monetary policy steady and offered a more upbeat view of the economy than last month, signalling its confidence that a pick-up in overseas demand will help sustain an export-driven recovery.
But the central bank slightly cut its inflation forecast for this fiscal year in a quarterly review of its projections, suggesting that it will maintain its massive monetary stimulus for the time being to achieve its ambitious 2 per cent target.
"Japan's economy has been turning towards a moderate expansion," the BOJ said. That compared with the previous month's assessment that Japan's economy continues to recover moderately as a trend.
In a widely expected move, the BOJ maintained the 0.1 per cent interest it charges on a portion of excess reserves that financial institutions park at the central bank.
At the two-day policy meeting that ended on Thursday, it also kept its yield target for 10-year Japanese government bonds around zero percent.
BOJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda will hold a news conference at 4:30 pm AEST to explain the policy decision.
After more than three years of huge asset purchases failed to accelerate inflation, the BOJ revamped its policy framework last September to one aimed at capping long-term interest rates.
The Japanese currency was largely unmoved following the news, with a US dollar fetching 111.2 yen.
While the BOJ's goals are distant and Kuroda's term asgovernor is due to end in April next year, the Federal Reserve is increasing interest rates and policy makers at the European Central Bank, who meet later Thursday, have been debating tapering their stimulus program.
Still, analysts surveyed by Bloomberg do expect that theBOJ's next step will be tightening, rather than further easing of its policy. This is because many expect consumer prices to pick up somewhat later this year, thanks to rising oil costs andthe relatively weak Japanese yen.
Rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Conflict in the Middle East. The rise of the nationalist far right. Energy security and climate change. Liverpool's late-season form.
There are many things to worry about in this world. But a tech bubble is not one of them.
The Nasdaq Composite climbed through the psychological 6000 mark this week, for the first time.
Predictably, that triggered unease in sections of the investment community. "We have seen this before," David Einhorn, a celebrated US hedge fund manager, told investors in widely reported comments. "In due time, we expect these bubbles to pop."
It's worth noting, Einhorn was explaining away a quarter in which his Greenlight Capital underperformed the US S&P 500, having failed to beat the US equity benchmark in 2016.
Citing the example of Tesla, Einhorn bemoaned that the "the market has regained enthusiasm for profitless companies", and that bullish investors were trying to claim that "traditional valuation metrics no longer apply to certain stocks".
But the thing is, if you use some of those very traditional valuation metrics – price-to-earnings, price-to-sales or price-to-book ratios – the Nasdaq looks nowhere near as overvalued as it did in 2000.
Back then, valuations "reflected the hope of what could be, not of what was at the time", says Montaka Global portfolio manager Andrew Macken.
"Today, many of the world's leading tech companies have already built irreplicable platforms. They are delivering today. Earnings are not a hope and a dream," he says.
Sure, Facebook, valued at 45 times earnings, might look expensive. But the company is growing at breakneck speed. It doubled its earnings last year, Macken points out. It has built a service used by more than 1 billion people each day and owns the largest digital marketing database in history.
Even Tesla, an admittedly speculative investment and the most-shorted stock on the Nasdaq, trades at only seven times sales, which is not nosebleed territoy. The stock may well be overvalued, but Tesla has an actual business, and a strong brand beloved by many people.
It's selling thousands of cars and batteries, with plans to sell many more. In other words, it's no WorldCom (a telecommunications firm that imploded due to accounting scandals, which was the seventh-biggest company on the Nasdaq at the 2000 peak).
Of course, tech stocks may well be overvalued. But perhaps the bigger potential problem is among unlisted start-ups.
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Energy giant Santos said it will supply more gas into the domestic market than it purchases for export, after the federal government intervened to avert an east coast gas crisis.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced an Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism to order limits on gas exports in the event of a domestic shortage.
Santos shares have been thumped, dropping 6.3 per cent to $3.41.Mr Turnbull said it was "ridiculous" that Australia was on the verge of becoming the world's largest LNG exporter yet there were gas shortages in the domestic market.
"It is fundamental, fundamental action needed to protect the national interest," he said."Australian jobs, Australian industry must have enough gas. It is vital that the energy market here is fully supplied."
Mr Turnbull said the east coast gas exporters had failed to promise they would no longer export more gas from the market than they produced.
Santos told the market this morning it was seeking more detail on how the policy would work.
"Santos will supply more gas into the Australian domestic market than it purchases for its share of LNG exports," the company said.
"Santos will seek clarification of how the new policy will work in practice in order to understand from government the terms on which it is proposing to introduce this mechanism and how proposals that have been put to Government to address the domestic market situation are being considered."
The company said it would work collaboratively with government and its joint venture partners to "ensure an outcome in the best interests of its shareholders".
Warwick King, chief executive of the Australia Pacific LNG project which is a joint venture of Origin Energy and ConocoPhillips, said the company "reaffirmed its commitment to continue to be a net contributor to the domestic gas market".
We mentioned it earlier, but here's more detail on the analyst note that has Qantas investors a tad excited this morning (the stock is up 3.2 per cent):
Qantas has room for $500 million a year in buybacks which could increase earnings per share by 32 per cent come the 2020 financial year.
That's the base case call from Macquarie analysts, who reckon the capital management could start with a $500 million buyback at the next full-year result in August.
"QAN have been clear that capital that is surplus, post capex commitments and debt reduction, should debt fall beyond the upper end of the targeted range of $4.8b – $6.0b, will be returned to shareholders in the most prudent manner," the analysts told clients.
"Dividends have been reinstated and our expectation is that these will remain over the medium term. However as the company has no franking credits currently and will not be a tax payer until FY19 (based on our estimates), the most prudent form of distribution is via buy-back."
Macquarie's base case, which assumed $1.5 billion annual capital expenditure and $500 million a year in buybacks, would increase earnings per share by 32 per cent in the 2020 financial year.
Its bull case, with capex at $1.3 billion a year, could see earnings per share up 49 per cent by the end of 2020.
Here's a nice follow-on from this morning's upbeat reports from Mirvac and Stockland.
You'll probably be not surprised to hear that housing fever has spread to the more affordable outer suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Hobart as well as nearby regional cities.
The AFR is reporting new figures which show houses and apartments in these markets sold twice as fast as homes in the inner suburbs over the past year.
The CoreLogic figures are based on homes that sold via private treaty over the 12 months to January and exclude capital city homes listed for auction, which usually include a six-week marketing period.
In NSW, Sydney's outer western suburbs, the Central Coast and the Blue Mountains have the fast selling suburbs led by South Penrith in the outer west and Wyoming on the Central Coast, where an apartment takes just seven day to sell on average.
In Victoria, houses and apartments in the outer Melbourne suburbs of Frankston, Casey, Melton, and in the Yarra Ranges, are selling fastest with homes in outlying suburbs like Diggers Rest, Melton and Narre Warren taking 10 to 12 days on average to sell.
These figures compare with an average "time on market" for houses and apartments in Sydney of 26 days and around 28 days in Melbourne houses, according to CoreLogic.
In Brisbane, where the average time on market for house and apartments is almost two months, houses in middle-ring suburbs like Middle Park and Ferny Grove are selling in just two weeks.
Nationally, the fastest selling suburb is five days for Montagu Bay in Hobart on the banks of the Derwent River and the Tasmanian capital has more than a dozen suburbs on the CoreLogic list, highlighting the demand for housing and the pressure being placed on house prices in Hobart.
"In most instances, the [fastest selling] suburbs that are not in capital cities are located in regions close to the capital city, highlighting how housing demand has rippled outwards from the capital cities as prices rise," said CoreLogic analyst Cameron Kusher.
Stockland's solid third-quarter performance will ensure it meets its 2017 guidance for a 6 to 7 per cent growth in funds from operations and a distribution per security of 25.5¢, up 4.1 per cent on a year ago.
The company achieved 5984 net deposits in the year to date, compared to a total of 4844 net deposits in the same time last year and it is also on track to meet its full-year target of more than 6000 settlements.
"We've continued to make good progress in our core businesses in the third quarter and our diversified property portfolio is well positioned to achieve and deliver sustainable, long-term growth," Stockland managing director Mark Steinert said.
"Our residential business is benefiting from our well-located projects in high growth corridors, our more diverse and affordable product mix, strong market conditions on the east coast, and the stabilisation of the Perth market."
Stockland said they were focused on affordability, reflected in the 15 per cent lower than the average surrounding prices of its house and land packages.
Retail activity was however flat due to Easter and school holidays.
"We encountered the same headwinds that are affecting the sector with some retail price deflation, above average retailer administrations and a weak start to the calendar year for discount department stores," Mr Steinert said.
Stockland's logistics and business park division maintained a steady tempo of performance and the office portfolio was also on track, Mr Steinert added.
"In our retirement living business, our resale values are benefiting from the quality of our villages and the strength of the broader residential market. We will continue to improve our long term returns by focusing on new development and the provision of additional services to our residents," Mr Steinert said.
Stockland shares are up 0.8 per cent at $4.92.
It's not all bad corporate news this morning: Mirvac says the rate of defaulting apartment buyers remains below 2 per cent as strong market conditions continue to underpin the company's performance.
Chief executive Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz said the company's strong performance had been driven largely by a "strategic overweight" position in Sydney and Melbourne.
"We have seen a solid amount of sales activity, up 18 per cent on the prior corresponding period, and we remain on track to achieve a full-year return on invested capital of more than 15 per cent," she said in a statement releasing the group's third-quarter update.
"We also expect to settle approximately 3300 residential lots in FY17."
The major apartment project highlights were the settlement of the group's The Moreton project at Bondi which is now 68 per cent settled and Ebsworth at Green Square also in Sydney which is now 74 per cent settled.
The group noted defaults were tracking below 2 per cent which is in line with where they were at the group's first half financial results released in February.
In office, Mirvac has negotiated 20,000 square metres of space now under heads of agreement during the quarter. Overall incentives remained at 19 per cent.
It also commenced a campaign to sell-down a 50 per cent interest in its 477 Collins Street and 664 Collins Street developments, with first round bids due in late May 2017.
In Mirvac's retail portfolio, 69 leasing deals across 17,500 square metres were completed with leasing spreads remaining positive. More than 250 lease deals have been executed in the retail portfolio in the nine months to 31 March 2017, representing about 36,600 square metres.
Mirvac shares are up 0.2 per cent at $2.30.
South32 has reported third-quarter coking coal production in Australia fell more than analysts estimated as mine work was undertaken.
Production decreased to 1.43 million tonnes in the three months to March 31, from 1.64 million a year ago, the Perth-based company said in a statement. That's below a 1.78 million median estimate among three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The company maintained its annual production forecast at 7.9 million tonnes.
Hard coking coal prices surged to a record $US314 a tonne this month after the remnants of Cyclone Debbie dumped heavy rain across Queensland and cut deliveries to export terminals.
South32 aborted a $200 million deal to purchase assets from Peabody Energy after Australian regulators raised concerns about the sale. The stock has rallied more than 70 per cent th past year after price gains for some of its commodities.
"Despite several operational challenges during the quarter,we increased our net cash balance by $645 million to $1.5billion," Chief Executive Officer Graham Kerr said in the statement.
RBC Capital analyst Paul Hissey said that production was "generally softer across the entire product group", but said he didn't believe it would have a lasting effect on future performance, with seasonal effects playing a large role.
"Of greater interest to us is the cash position, as we believe balance sheet strength is the most likely mechanism to enable the next steps, be it further capital management, development or acquisitions, which could entice shareholder interest and is therefore the key driver of our 'outperform rating' - particularly at a time when other major peers are experiencing negative pricing trends in key commodities such as iron ore and oil."
Silver output from the Cannington mine in Australia, the world's largest, fell 21 percent to 3.55 million ounces due tolower grades. A fire at the mine this month forced the company to cut its annual production guidance to 16.5 million ounces,down from last year's output of 21.4 million ounces.
The company's manganese ore output climbed to 1.29 milliontons during the third quarter from 1.21 million a year ago,exceeding a 1.23 million median estimate among three analysts.
Aluminum production was 245,000 tonnes compared with 240,000 tonnes last year.
South32 shares are 0.5 per cent lower at $2.77.
Well, here's why Newcrest isn't following its peers higher this morning.
The gold digger is the latest Australian company to be affected by soaring electricity prices, with the company revealing the cost of powering its flagship Cadia mine will virtually double next year.
The shock power contract renewal came as Newcrest indicated Cadia would be operating below full capacity for months in the wake of a light earthquake measuring 4.3.
Cadia delivered more than 70 per cent of Newcrest's EBIT in fiscal 2016, but the combination of damage from the seismic event and the power price surge looks set to crimp those earnings in the near future.
The market has been awaiting a fresh update on the Cadia damage, particularly in the two underground panel caves.
The larger and more important of the caves, Panel Cave 2, has suffered only minor damage, and Newcrest said it should resume operations in the early months of the 2018 financial year.
But Newcrest was unable to say when Panel Cave 1 would be able to resume.
Newcrest is considering restarting the nearby Ridgway mine to allow processing of materials at surface to continue.
But for now the mine remains under a prohibition notice from NSW mine safety regulators.
Despite the seismic interruptions at Cadia and rain-related disruptions at WA's Telfer mine in the March quarter, Newcrest has maintained its gold production guidance for fiscal 2017.
But the miner expects to be close to the bottom end of that guidance range.
The power price shock at Cadia was less expected, but comes as many miners and industrial companies in Australia weigh up the impact of soaring power prices and reduced security of power supply.
"Newcrest has recently finalised an updated electricity supply contract for the full 2018 financial year at a base price (excluding regulated charges) 90 per cent higher than is currently being paid in 2017," said Newcrest in a statement.
The gold miner said the actual impact on Cadia's cost of production would depend on output and energy consumption, but if the mine were operating at full capacity the impact would be up to $US45 per ounce.
The ASX 200 is holding above the 5900-point line and inching higher in early trade, as gains in the big banks and Macquarie tips the scale in a pretty indifferent sharemarket.
The benchmark measure is up a few points at 5915, as the major four lenders gain 03-0.6 per cent. Macquarie has added another 0.7 per cent after yesterday's powerful gains.
Qantas is up 3 per cent and doing its bit to keep the market aloft after a broker said the company had "significant" capacity for share buybacks. Its up 3 per cent.
Wesfarmers is down 0.4 per cent and Woolies 0.3 per cent following the former's earnings update. Energy stocks are the worst performers early, as Origin falls 2.5 per cent, AGL loses 1.8 per cent and Woodside drops 0.5 per cent.
Miners are weighing, with Newcrest dropping another 2.1 per cent to be the single biggest early drag, although its smaller peers are enjoying a bounce. BHP is off 0.1 per cent, Rio is down 0.3 per cent, while Fortescue has lost 0.8 per cent. South32 is flat on its production update - more on that in a tic.
"There is a material uncertainty that may cast significant doubt on the group's ability to continue as a going concern," Ten Network has said in a statement, as the TV company seeks a borrowing facility of as much as $250m to meet its debt obligations.
The fate of Ten is now in the hands of its billionaire shareholders Lachlan Murdoch, James Packer and Bruce Gordon as the free-to-air broadcaster seeks to put in place the loan.
The trio of billionaires are guarantors of a $200 million revolving cash advance facility, of which $45.5 million has been drawn, from the CBA signed back in 2013. It will expire on December 23.
In reporting its half-year results, Ten said it is seeking a new borrowing facility with an extended maturity and expanded size to $250 million. It said the new loan is required as a result of "expected trading performance and volatility within the free-to-air advertising market."
Ten also noted it will need "sufficient further guarantees by shareholder guarantors and/or new financiers."
Ten has engaged both McKinsey and Kordamentha to help it deal with the increasing pressures it is facing.
The AFR has revealed Ten's three billionaire shareholders will decide whether they will back the loan next Thursday.
If Ten is unable to work out a deal for a new loan and is unable to pay back the loan to the CBA, its trio of billionaires may have the right to appoint a receiver.
Sources said at least one of the trio is cool on the idea of guaranteeing a loan again. Mr Packer is rumoured to have been looking to sell his stake in Ten, home of Masterchef and The Biggest Loser.
Ten confirmed it is in discussions to renegotiate its onerous US content output deals with 21st Century Fox and CBS, as revealed by the Financial Review. Ten spends in excess of $100 million per year on the long-term deals which force it to purchase a list of content, regardless of its performance locally.
For the first half of 2016-17, Ten reported a $232.2 million loss, thanks largely to a $214.5 million writedown on the value of its television licence, compared with a profit of $13.4 million in the first half last year.
The announcement hasn't come as a massive surprise to the market: the stock is off 3.4 per cent at 43 cents. Ten shares haven't had a single session up in four weeks and have halved in value this year.
China's steel futures climbed to their highest in 2-1/2 weeks overnight amid unconfirmed market talk of production curbs in cities surrounding Beijing ahead of the New Silk Road summit in May.
China typically orders industrial plants to cut or limit production to help clear the skies ahead of a major event such as when it hosted the G20 Summit in Hangzhou last year.
While there was discussion in the market of unconfirmed plans by the city of Tianjin and Hebei province, a top steel producing region near Beijing, to curb output around the mid-May summit, analyst Richard Lu at CRU consultancy in Beijing said he had not yet heard of an official order from the local governments.
"There might be restocking demand before and after the event and also the Labor Day holiday [on May1] which would be positive for rebar prices," said Lu.
The strength in steel prices pulled up iron ore, but the raw material ended only slightly higher after rising as much as 3.7 per cent. The most-active iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange closed up 0.2 per cent at 496.50 yuan per tonne.
Firmer futures could help spot iron ore prices recover some lost ground.
Iron ore for delivery to China's Qingdao port edged up 55 US cents to $US66.62 a tonne on Wednesday evening, according to Metal Bulletin.
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