Later today we should see evidence to back all that talk about our strong terms of trade and rising national income. For over three years now the Reserve Bank’s commodity price index has been telling the story of soaring prices and rising volumes and returns; with various federal and state governments and a host of companies in and servicing the resources sector feeding off the boom. Now later today we will see the May trade figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The optimists are forecasting the first surplus in around six years or more, and the cautious are saying a much smaller deficit, perhaps so tiny in the scheme of things to be not very meaningful. And, after the dramatic improvement in April, and with a further improvement in June, we could get a sharply lower current account deficit for the June quarter and one better than expected ...

Big miners drag down share market THE Australian share market was weaker at noon as losses in the resources sector continued to weigh, although banking stocks recovered. At 12 noon AEST, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 26.5 points to 5114.4 while the broader All Ordinaries shed 30.6 points to 5230.5. The September share price index futures contract was 20 points lower at 5118 on a volume of 20,255 contracts. During the morning, the S&P/ASX200 index had reached a low of 5060.6, close to its 2008 trough of 5039.60 reached on March 17. Macquarie Equities adviser Helen Spencer said banking stocks had recovered from their morning lows as investors took heart from increased confidence that the central bank was unlikely to raise interest rates again this year. “While the market pulling is down a bit because of resources, the financials have had a great result,” Ms Spencer said. “Talk about holding interest rates steady would also be ...