澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2015-11-01（在线收听）

 Macquarie Group has impressed investors with a record half-year profit of 1.1-billion dollars. That’s up 58% compared to the same period last year. It’s also beaten the company’s own forecast issued earlier this month. Macquarie says the strong earnings were mostly driven by improved trading conditions, foreign exchange gains and higher performance fees. Shareholders will get an interim dividend one dollar and 60 cents a share partially franked. Shares in Macquarie Group jumped on the result up 2% by the close. The other major banks were lower. ANZ led the losses. Blackmores is returning some of yesterday’s gains. Dicksmith continues its fall and the port’s operator Asciano jumped after Que bought 90% stake in the company, blocking a takeover attempt by Brookfield. Fears about higher interest rates in the US are nerving investors on the broad Australian share market. Mining and banking shares were the biggest drags. By the close, the All Ords was off 4%. The ASX 200 Index down 0.5%. And the Australian dollar is pushing up against the greenback to 71 US cents. The number of business loans taken out last month surged by the most since the 2008 global financial crisis. Figures from the Reserve Bank show private sector credit rose by 0.8% overall in September. Lending to businesses rose by 1.2% in the month. And the rise in annual business credit hit 6.3%.