Stocks lift but caution remains 12:38pm: Sticking with commodities, US crude oil is up for a third day to trade near the highest price in a week. Hedge funds cut bullish bets on WTI by the most in almost two months. WTI for May delivery, which expires today, rose as much as 33 cents and last traded at $US88.27. The more-active June future gained 29 cents to $US88.56. Brent for June settlement increased 33 cents to $US99.98 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. ""While we're holding around this zone, the outlook is starting to look more positive for oil,"" says Michael McCarthy, a chief market strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney. ""We should see a floor under oil at current levels. A lot of the falls that we've seen, not only in oil but other industrial commodities, were related to the weaker growth numbers that we've seen out of China and the US."" 12:34pm: Copper has declined for a second day amid speculation that an earthquake in China's Sichuan province will hurt demand for the metal in the near-term before it boosts consumption in the reconstruction. Metal for delivery in three months fell as much as 1.5 per cent to $US6888.75 a metric tonne on the London Metal Exchange, before trading at $US6935.50, headed for the lowest close since October 2011. Copper declined for a fifth consecutive week and dropped into a bear market. The August futures contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange dropped 1.1 per cent to 50,110 yuan ($US8107) a tonne. The death toll rose to 188 today with more than 11,500 injured after a magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit Lushan county on April 20. Coal mining infrastructure also suffered serious damage, according to Xinhua News Agency. ""The event adds to the negative sentiment for copper,"" says Lian Zheng, an analyst at Xinhu Futures. ""This may hurt demand first before it boosts consumption in reconstruction. Copper may head to test $US6500."" 12:14pm: The NSW government must start building a second Sydney airport at Badgerys Creek after Melbourne announced plans to develop Avalon airport, the NSW Business Chamber says. Victoria today moved a step closer to opening a second international airport with the signing of a new deal giving the Philippines the rights for the first international flights into Avalon Airport, about 55km southwest of Melbourne's CBD. ""I don't believe that Sydneysiders want to see Australia's global city eclipsed by Melbourne but that is exactly what we are going to get if we don't end the standoff and get on with the job of developing the Badgerys Creek site into a major Airport for western Sydney,"" NSW Business Chamber CEO Stephen Cartwright said. Around Sydney, there are four potential sites - each favoured by different levels of government, business groups and unions. The federal government is due to hand down a 3200 page report in the coming weeks, examining Wilton, northwest of Wollongong, and Richmond, north of Penrith, as potential sites. The business chamber and Unions NSW both say Badgerys Creek, about 55 kilometres southwest of the CBD, is the best choice. However, NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell wants the second airport built at Canberra with a high speed rail link between the nation's capital and Sydney. 12:03pm: Discovery Metals" top shareholder and former suitor, Chinese firm Cathay Fortune, said it will not support the Africa-focused copper producer's plan to shore up its funding. Cathay Fortune, a private equity firm founded by Chinese billionaire Yu Yong, working with the China-Africa Development Fund, scrapped an $824 million bid for Discovery Metals in February over concerns about the target's key copper project in Botswana. But it remains Discovery's top shareholder, with a 13.7 per cent stake, according to Thomson Reuters data. Discovery said in its quarterly report released late on Friday that it had $16.9 million in cash, down nearly two-thirds from the amount available in December. Discovery Metals went on a trading halt on Friday pending an announcement on a financing plan. 11:41am: A radical decision by ratings agency Standard & Poor's to turn $3.6 billion of equity into debt could see Australian firms shun once-popular hybrid securities and seek refuge in far simpler forms of debt such as retail bonds. In a game-changing move announced early this month, S&P overhauled its criteria on hybrids, a blend of debt and equity, and revoked the 100 percent equity credit the agency assigned when the securities were initially sold. "We continually reassess our ratings methodologies, adopting changes as needed, including to respond to changing market conditions and behaviours," S&P said when it revoked the equity rating. The severity of the changes caught some borrowers off guard as the once-cheap equity suddenly became very expensive debt. It's very simple, if you want equity, issue equity. If you want debt, issue debt," said Simon Milne, a former treasurer at gaming group Crown and toll road operator Transurban. But don't do a hybrid. 11:30am: In morning trade, the Nikkei share average climbed 2.1 per cent to a near five-year high, with exporters taking the lead as the yen weakened after the Group of 20 economies stopped short of criticising Japan's sweeping monetary expansionary policies. The Nikkei was up 286.59 points at 13,603.07 after trading as high as 13,611.58, its highest since June 2008. Exporters charged higher as the dollar firmed against the yen to within a whisker of 100 after the G20 refrained from singling out Tokyo's reflationary policies as some in the markets had feared. In a communique after a two-day meeting, the G20 simply said it would be "mindful" of possible side effects from extended periods of monetary stimulus. 11:21am: Looking across the ditch, New Zealand's tourist numbers are up, thanks in part to an early Easter, the England cricket team's tour of the country and marketing campaigns centred on the release of The Hobbit. The latest figures from Statistics New Zealand show that international visitor arrivals for March were up 13 per cent on figures from March 2012. The figure of 270,700 arrivals last month was the highest ever recorded for March, easily surpassing the previous high of 250,800 arrivals in March 2008, Statistics New Zealand population statistics project manager Susan Hollows says. Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler says there have been strong arrivals from several target markets, including Australia, North America, the UK and Germany.There was an almost 16 per cent growth in visitors from the UK, helped by having the Barmy Army in town to watch the English cricketers, Mr Bowler says. Further, growth in the US and Canadian markets is partly being put down to tourism campaigns leveraging off the release of the first film in The Hobbit trilogy. 11:11am: Copper producer Oz Minerals has lowered its output forecast and raised its cost estimate as it grapples with a slippage at its main mine, writes BusinessDay's Glenda Kwek. The Australian firm said in a statement to the ASX today that it was lowering its 2013 production expectations down to 82,000 to 88,000 tonnes copper from 90,000 to 95,000 tonnes. Its production guidance for gold remained unchanged. Oz Minerals also raised its cost estimate from $1.50-$1.65 a pound to $1.65-$1.80 a pound. The company said it was working on remediation following further slippage in the overburden material in the south wall of the Malu open pit at Prominent Hill in South Australia. Oz Minerals will hold its annual meeting in Melbourne on May 28. The quarterly report came as copper followed gold downwards on global markets last week. Copper recorded its biggest weekly loss for 16 months, with the London Metal Exchange down 1.4 per cent at $US6988 ($6797) a metric ton. 11:04am: Still basking in the glow of its much-hyped alliance with Emirates, Qantas faces a better outlook in the domestic aviation market, which represents the core of its earnings. RBS Morgans analysts say the capacity glut in the domestic market is showing further signs of easing. They point to airline schedules for September showing a 1 per cent decline on the same month last year. ""With Qantas continuing to trade below [net tangible assets], we see further upside potential in the share price with the capacity issue subsiding, the Qantas international business on the path to recovery and the potential for the dividend to be reinstated at the full-year result,"" the analysts said in a note today. RBS Morgans analysts estimate the domestic market has excess capacity of about 3 per cent. ""A 1 per cent decline is expected for September as the carriers rationalise capacity and Tiger shifts capacity to smaller routes,"" they said. ""This strengthens the likelihood that the market will be back in balance within six months."" Shares in Qantas rose 1.7 per cent cent to $1.78 this morning, while Virgin Australia was up 1.2 per cent at 43.5 cents. 10:55am: Australian drug maker Pharmaxis is in a trading halt ahead of the release of its Phase III bronchiectasis clinical trial (B305) of cystic fibrosis drug Bronchitol. The trial is a significant milestone for the biotechnology firm, which was hit by a setback earlier this year when the US Food and Drug Administration rejected Bronchitol for marketing in the country. "B305 is a large trial and the results require detailed analysis," the company said in a statement to the ASX this morning. Gary Phillips, Pharmaxis' newly appointed chief executive, told investors in an earnings call earlier this month that he expected a new trial designed with the help of the FDA would begin in the first quarter of 2014. Pharmaxis reported a net loss of $9.7 million in the three months to March 31, as compared to a $9 million net loss in the previous corresponding period. 10:38am: What a NSW judge found will send shock waves through the ranks of economic consultants, Peter Martin writes in this interesting yarn: Rio Tinto lashed out at the NSW Land and Environment Court last Monday after it overturned government approval for a massive expansion of its Warkworth open cut coal mine in the Hunter Valley. The decision was "significantly obstructing investment and job creation in New South Wales," the mining giant thundered. It was "a blow to our plans for the Mount Thorley Warkworth mine and the jobs of the 1300 people who work there." As it happened the judge spent a good deal of time considering the impact on jobs, especially Rio's far-fetched claim that its plan would have created an extra 44,600 jobs. It will never again be safe to come up with a big number for jobs created ("direct and indirect") expecting the decision-maker to give it a tick because it's the outcome of an economic model. The Treasury has been on to the scam for a long time. 10:26am: Live betting odds are set to be banned during sports after the industry's peak body, Free TV Australia, said it would draft a new code of practice, writes BusinessDay's Lucy Battersby.