Australian market falls again

Press, 2 September 1981, Page 22

Australian market falls again

Another run of poor profit results from the mining sector, confusion Over the direction of U.S. interest rates, a slump on Wall Street, and the absence of trading in London, added up to another down-day on the Australian sharemarkets yesterday. Peko was among the losers with a 24c fall to 626 c in response to a 92 per cent fall in final earnings to 53.6 M. The stock traded as low as 620 c but met support at that level from investors who see the stock as a potential takeover target. MIM fell 5c to 405 c after announcing a 47.7 per cent drop in yearly profit to ?106.4M, about in line with market expectations, while CRA weakened 5c to 390 c ahead of an after-hours announcement of an 84 per cent

decline in interim earnings to SI6M. Industrials, buoyed by more impressive profit results, generally held their ground. Swan Brewery featured with a. 10c rise to 230 c in reaction to a 250 c a share take-over offer by the Perth businessman, Alan Bond. Turnover was light amid talk that the bid, which values the company at 1151.4 M, was on the cheap side. The industrials index added 2.4 points to 704.3. in contrast with the all-ordin-aries index which slipped 3.6 points to 625.6. In dollar terms, the day rated among the quietest of the year with only $5.7M worth of equities changing hands. Falls outnumbered rises by a ratio of almost two-to-one.