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Markets Live: ASX trading flat after morning rally

The Australian share market is sitting just below yesterday's closing price.

The S&P/ASX 200 index is down 2.3 points, or 0.04 per cent, at 6055.

Transurban Group is now leading the market lower with a 1.3 per cent loss today. South32 is down 1.6 per cent while Aurizon Holdings is weighing also, down 3.5 per cent.

Retail Food Group shares have fallen 7.8 per cent while Vocus Group is down 2.7 per cent.

Commonwealth Bank is up 0.4 per cent while Origin Energy is also among the market leaders, up 1.6 per cent.

Nanosonics is up 6.2 per cent today while Metcash has bounced back from a bad few days, up 3.4 per cent.

Australia's biggest telecommunications companies will be forced to tell the regulator for the first time how many people have complained under a raft of new rules to fix customer woes when moving onto the National Broadband Network.

Telcos with 30,000 customers or more will be forced to report complaints and how long it takes to resolve them or face stiff penalties, according to new standards that were released on Thursday by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). But to the disappointment of some consumer advocates, data revealing the best and worst industry performers won't be made public.

The rule change is hoped to improve customers' experience moving onto the NBN after sky-rocketing complaint numbers in 2017. A recent survey found a third of customers had a period without internet or landline services when migrating onto the NBN.

Jennifer Duke has the full story here.

Target will close dozens of stores in an effort to reduce its footprint by 20 per cent over the next five years and create a "boutique" fashion chain competing with fast-fashion giants H&M and Uniqlo.

The brand, which has 305 stores across Australia, has been a problem child for the Wesfarmers retail conglomerate and the ugly sister to the group's department store powerhouse, Kmart.

Wesfarmers' CEO of department stores, Guy Russo, said that having stabilised Target's earnings and reset its cost base, after it ran at a $195 million loss in 2016, the group would further improve profitability by closing underperforming stores when their leases expired.

Patrick Hatch has the full story here.

You can't take it with you.

Richard Davis, the former chief executive of funeral service operator Invocare, is well aware of that.

So Davis, who is now a non-executive director of the company, has made it clear he will not have his coffin lined with Invocare shares - he is dumping them at an alarmingly regular rate.

This week he cashed in 40,000 shares for $532,000.

It still leaves him with 310,000 but the pot has shrunk considerably since the start of last year when he had more than 521,000.

Colin Kruger has the full story here.

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The boss of Australian copper miner Oz Minerals, Andrew Cole, is confident his company's takeover bid for the Brazilian-focused junior copper company Avanco Resources will win the backing of Avanco shareholders.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Melbourne Mining Club event on Thursday, Mr Cole said Avanco's portfolio of assets in Brazil was an ideal fit for his company, and that support for the bid among Avanco shareholders was progressing well.

Mr Cole also painted a strong outlook for the future of copper, citing the rise of electric vehicles, the surge in renewable energy and regulatory moves to reduce emissions and pollution across the world.

Darren Gray has the full story .

The Australian market has rallied through the morning to be sitting flat on yesterday's closing price.

The S&P/ASX 200 index is down just 1 point, or 0.02 per cent, at 6056.

Wesfarmers' has reigned in some of its losses, down now just 0.5 per cent although Westpac has fallen to be now leading the market lower.

Retail Food Group is down 3.7 per cent while Aurizon Holdings is down 2.7 per cent.

CSL is leading the market higher with a modest 0.4 per cent gain. Commonwealth Bank is next with a gain of just 0.3 per cent.

Nanosonics is up 6.2 per cent while Domino's PIzza is up 4.4 per cent.

Fintech Prospa has postponed its plan to list on the sharemarket on Friday, after it blamed queries from the corporate watchdog for a last-minute decision to delay the float earlier in the week.

The company released a statement last night saying it had decided it was "in the best interest of the company and new investors to postpone the listing and provide a briefing on the matters raised by ASIC [Australian Securities and Investments Commission] in the context of the industry wide review".

"A revised listing schedule will be communicated," the company said.

On Wednesday Prospa delayed the float for 48 hours about half an hour before trading in its shares was to begin, citing queries from the corporate watchdog over its loan conditions.

Clancy Yeates has the full story here.

Miner Rio Tinto has announced a joint venture with Minmetals to explore for world class mineral deposits in China. The joint venture, which remains subject to regulatory approvals, was signed off this week.

In a statement released on Friday morning Rio Tinto said the immediate priority for the joint venture would be mineral targets in China identified under a technical collaboration agreement between the parties.

But Rio also signalled that the scope of the joint venture would eventually be widened, saying that "the future collaboration of the parties will expand to exploration of global resources".

Rio Tinto chief executive officer Jean-Sebastien Jacques welcomed the agreement.

"The formalisation of the exploration joint venture is an important milestone in our growing partnership with China and Minmetals, which is an increasingly important player in the global mining industry. Our complementary strengths in exploration put us in the best possible position to find metals and minerals essential to human progress," he said.

China Minmetals Corporation president Guo Wenqing said the partnership was very significant to his company.

"Rio Tinto has rich prospecting experience and great discoveries worldwide, while Minmetals has solid technical expertise and extensive experience – the two strong partners will drive breakthroughs, pioneer progress, and promote the exchanges and collaboration of the global resource industry," he said.

Rio Tinto said the registered capital of the joint venture would be RMB200M (US$31.3 million).

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The eyes of the tech world were on Apple this week - until Facebook's latest privacy crisis subsumed everything.

Thousands of software developers flocked to San Jose, California for Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. But even at WWDC, with Apple on the brink of becoming history's first trillion dollar company, Facebook and privacy were inescapable.

Among the many announcements made this week by Apple were new measures designed to protect privacy, including features in the Safari browser that will block ad-tech companies from tracking users, building detailed profiles of them, and serving them creepy ads as they surf the internet.

Read the full story here.

Coles plans to lift capital investment to levels akin to those in the first years after Wesfarmers' $20 billion acquisition in order to refurbish stores and meet customer demand for greater convenience.

Outgoing Coles managing director John Durkan and new chief financial officer Leah Weckert surprised investors on Thursday by flagging a significant "step-up" in capex following the demerger from Wesfarmers, saying Australia's second-largest food and liquor retailer needed to renovate stores that were last refurbished eight or nine years ago.

"It will likely step up on last year to levels we saw in the early parts of the turnaround," Ms Weckert said.

Sue Mitchell has the full story here.