澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2010-07-17

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Goldman Sachs will pay a $600 million fine to settle a fraud case. The US financial regulator imposed the penalty on the bank for misleading investors¹ about a hedge fund that was destined² to fail. The Securities and Exchange Commission says the penalty is the biggest they've handed out. It comes as the US Senate passes new laws to overhaul³ the country's financial sector⁴. The reform's the biggest since the Great Depression and aimed to prevent a repeat of the subprime mortgage crisis.

National Australia Bank's prolonged bid to take over AXA Asia Pacific is set to drag on even longer. The period of exclusive talks between NAB, AXA Asia Pacific and its parent company AXA SA has expired, but NAB is trying to extend negotiations⁵ on the $13.3 billion bid.

To the markets now, and a mixed bag of US economic data overnight contributed to a fall on Wall Street that’s left Australian shares in the red. The All Ords and the ASX 200 are down about 0.5 percent at close. The mining sector led the losses. AXA also lost almost 2 percent. Elsewhere in the region, Japan's Nikkei has shed almost 3 percent.

And checking the currency markets, the local dollar is fairly flat. It's buying 87.6 US cents.

That's ABC Business News.