VIDEO NEWS TRANSCRIPT The local share market surged ahead today rising more than 5 per cent. Mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto and the major banks like the Commonwealth Bank and NAB led the gains in trade today with investors hopeful of a higher than expected rate cut tomorrow from the Reserve Bank. Wall St ended stronger at the end of last week U.S stocks rallying after the market experienced one of its worst months in history. On the local markets, The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 204 points higher at 4,222, and on the futures market the SPI 200's up 141. To company news around this afternoon, Westpac has announced the appointment of current Chairman of St George John Curtis, as deputy Chairman of Westpac and the appointments of St George Dircetors Peter Hawkins and Graham Reaney as Directors of Westpac. As part of the proposed merger Westpac agreed to appoint three St George directors to its board. Westpac Chairman Ted Evans says that subject to the successful completion of the Westpac and St George merger, these appointments will become effective on December 1 2008. Westpac shares closed 5.87 per cent higher at $21.47. Flight Centre says it expects first half earnings to be lower than last year making it hard to achieve the level of pre-tax growth the company initially targeted for the full year. CEO Shannon O'Brian Turner told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting today that while it is difficult to predict future results in the current climate the company believes it will be modestly down on the $92.9 million result achieved during the first half of 2007/2008. Mr O'Brian Turner however says there are certainly opportunities for the company and it will keep the market updated with regard to material developments. Flight Centre shares closed 6.81 per cent lower at $13. Also making news today. Beach Petroleum says it has made a significant natural gas discovery in the Cooper basin in South Australia. The company says the Brownlow-1 discovery holds the potential to contain a resource in the range of seven to 14 billion cubic feet of gas. And Qantas says its New CEO Alan Joyce has the potential to earn up to $2.71 million in additional income through cash and share based incentives. This would be on top of his fixed annual remuneration of $2 million. Just re-capping some of the stories covered in our earlier reports.... Mount Gibson Iron says three of its customers have defaulted on their binding offtake agreements. The company says its major shareholder APAC and Shougang Concord have agreed to purchase available production from Mount Gibson's operations at a discounted price. And Babcock & Brown has announced its founder Jim Babcock has resigned as director of the company only two months after stepping down as Chairman. Now to today's best and worst performers.... All indices closed in positive territory today but the sector making the biggest gain at close is the Staples index, it climbed 467 points to 7,089, while the sector making the smallest gain is the Real Estate Investment Trust index up 15 points to 1,038. Lynas was the best performer in the S&P/ASX 200 adding 40.63% to 45 cents. Mincor Resources and Platinum Australia also gained. The worst performing stock was Flight Centre shares as mentioned before. The Commonwealth Property Office Fund and Macquarie Office Trust also declined. Moving onto commodities now. Gold is currently trading at $736.90 US an ounce and light crude is $1.13 higher at $68.94 US a barrel. SOURCE: FINANCE NEWS NETWORK.
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