Australian dollar nears two year low

The Australian Dollar is still near a two year low while the All Ordinaries made very small gains with mining stocks weighing on the market.

Transcript

00:00Well, not everyone's back from holidays just yet, so that explains why today the share

00:06market barely moved an inch.

00:08But when we look at individual stocks, there were some pretty extreme moves.

00:12For instance, the wealth management firm Insignia Financial surged almost 15% after it received

00:18a second takeover bid in two months, with the latest one valued at $2.9 billion.

00:24But it wasn't such a great day for miners like Bellevue Gold, after it issued a disappointing

00:28trading update, nor was it a good day for BHP and Fortescue, as iron ore prices fell

00:34below $100 a tonne on concerns about our biggest trading partner, China, and how its economy

00:40is going, while gold and oil prices also slipped.

00:44Overseas, tech stocks like Microsoft and Nvidia boosted Wall Street, while Asian markets went

00:49backwards, and the Aussie dollar remains weak at just over 62 US cents.

00:55And finally, today turned out to be a pretty gloomy day for companies which make alcohol,

00:59like Treasury Wine Estates, which is behind Penfolds Wine, as well as Kirin, Sapporo,

01:05Asahi and Budweiser, which also saw big falls in their share price.

01:09Now, this sell-off appears to be linked with a report that the US Surgeon General published

01:13over the weekend, pointing out that alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of

01:18cancer, after tobacco and obesity.

01:22And he called for warning labels to be placed on alcohol bottles, just like we see on cigarette

01:26packets.

01:28And at the risk of sounding uncool, the more you drink, the higher your risk of getting

01:32cancer, according to the research.

01:34And that's finance in a roundabout way.