More houses for sale than any time in the last 7 year despite lower levels of new listings – buyers absent; possible alliance between Newcrest Mining and Barrick Gold to purchase Newmont Mining; and Buffett talks to CNBC following his latest letter to investors. Here’s what’s happening in markets today.

It’s a buyer’s market out there

Tim Lawless from CoreLogic told ABC yesterday that despite new listings falling 22% and 15% in Sydney and Melbourne, the total number of listings has increased by 16% and 27% respectively. Properties are staying on the market for longer and demanding bigger discounts before selling.

Read article

Newcrest Mining and Barrick Gold consider possible team-up

Barrick Gold is considering a purchase of US$19B Newmont Mining, but it may team up with Australia’s Newcrest Mining (NCM) in order to do so. Reportedly, Newcrest would gain control of Newmont’s Australian mines.

Read article

Two hours with Warren Buffett

Following the release of the latest Berkshire Hathaway letter, Becky Quick from CNBC sat down with Warren for an in-depth, 2-hour long interview.  

Watch interview

Afterpay results

If you're keen to see the APT results, they were just released. At 10am the cross price was $19.10 (down from $20.50 yesterday). 

See results

Stocks to watch

The following companies have reported results so far this morning:

• Afterpay Touch Group (APT)
• Vista Group (VGL)
• Mercury NZ (MCY)
• Caltex (CTX) – also announced a $260m off-market buyback
• BSA (BSA)
• Boart Longyear (BLY)
• Saferoads Holdings (SRH)
• Bingo Industries (BIN)
• Experience Co (EXP)
• Autosports Group (ASG)
• Velocity Property Group (VP7)
• Probiotec (PBP)
• Onvue Holdings (OVH)
• Elixinol Global (EXL)
• A2B Australia (A2B)
• Amaysim (AYS)
• Novita Healthcare (NHL)
• CVC (CVC)
• Raiz Invest (RZI)
• Speedcast (SDA)
• Hub24 (HUB)
• Frontier Digital Ventures (FDV)
• Aurora Labs (A3D)
• Arq Group (ARQ)
• Livehire (LVH)
• Big River Industries (BRI)
• Spark Infrastructure (SKI)
• MOQ (MOQ)
• Ovato (OVT)
• Hills (HIL)
• Slater & Gordon Lawyers (SGH)
• Estia Health (EHE)
• MNF Group (MNF)
• SRG Global (SRG)
• Wagners Holding Company
• Cedar Woods (CWP)
• Aeris Resources (AIS)
• Swick Mining Services (SWK)
• Yancoal (YAL)
• Zenith Energy (ZEN)
• Mitchell Services (MSV)

Key market data

• ASX Futures: 6,131.0 (-0.28%)
• AUD/USD: 0.7170 (+0.17%)
• ASX200: 6,186.30 (+0.31%)
• S&P 500: 2,796.11 (+0.12%)
• China A50: 12,735.12 (+6.04%)
• Australia 2-yr bond: 1.747 (+0.75%)
• Australia 10-yr bond: 2.093 (+0.24%)
• US 2-yr bond: 2.510 (+0.25%)
• US 10-yr bond: 2.664 (-0.07%)
• Gold (USD/oz): 1,329.70 (-0.03%)
• Copper (USD/lb): 2.950 (-0.00%)
• Brent Oil (USD/bbl): 64.94 (-3.25%)
• 62% Iron Ore (USD/t): 84.5 (-2.65%)

Upcoming releases and events

• ABS Construction Work Done for Q4 is releaqsed on Wednesday at 11:30am AEST
• Private Sector Credit, Private CapEx, and HIA New Home Sales for Q1 are all released on Thursday at 11:30am AEST
• US GDP for Q4 is released on Friday at 12:30am AEST
• European Unemployment for January is released at 9pm Friday AEST. 

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