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Wall Street shares open higher as Scotland decides

Published: 10:10 18 Sep 2014 EDT

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As in Europe, US shares opened higher as the residents of Scotland take part in a crunch referendum, and investors were soothed after  a Fed policy meeting yesterday.

The benchmark Dow is up an impressive 50 points to 17,205, while Nasdaq gained 17 points. The broader based S&P 500 was lifted five to 2,007.

The Federal Reserve, or Central Bank, pledged on Wednesday to renew its pledge to keep interest rates near zero for a “considerable time” after quantitative easing ends.

This has apparently soothed investors on both sides of the Atlantic. Footsie is up over 29 points at the time of writing.

A possible dent to US sentiment came in the form of new housing stats, which showed construction starts on new homes fell last month, after a recent surge.

In company news, Steel Dynamics shares rose after it forecast a strong third quarter due to increased shipments and solid demand from key markets.

Meanwhile in London, Scotland based businesses were among the  bigest gainers on this historic day, with RBS (LON:RBS), Lloyds (LON:LLOY), Standard Life (LON:SL.) and Aberdeen Asset Management (LON:ADN) all higher.

Big cap miners were on the other side of the spectrum - with Fresnillo (LON:FRES) and Randgold Resources (LON:RRS) both down as the strong dollar pushed the price of gold and silver lower.

Budget carrier Easyjet (LON:EZJ) added 1.49% as it said it would return 40% of its profits to shareholders from next year. 

Electronics goods distributor Premier Farnell (LON:PFL) shares went 3.76% higher as it repeated expectations for the full year despite seeing pre-tax profit dip in its latest half year.

In small cap world, by far the standout gainer was Caza Oil & Gas (LON:CAZA) shares advanced over 22% after revealing results at the first Bone Springs well at the Broadcaster property were excellent.

The property neighbours the West Copperline project that has already yielded prolific results, yet the Broadcaster well appears to be even better.

Shares in Mariana Resources (LON:MARL) surged almost 50% after the group sealed a savvy acquisition that takes it into Turkey and partners it with one of the big shots of the mining sector, Teck Resources.

It is buying Aegean Metals Group (CVE:AGN) in an all-paper deal that values the Toronto-listed explorer at 6.25 cents a share, or C$2.4mln in total.

Another gainer was Tertiary Minerals (LON:TYM), which added 12.5% on the day.

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