Market's rally stalls before profit season

The sharemarket retreated yesterday, with stocks across the board losing ground as the market waited for guidance from the upcoming profit season.
The ASX 200 closed down 10.2 points to 4905.4 and the All Ordinaries dipped 9.4 to 4850.4.
Nomura Australia strategist Eric Betts said the market was still poised to see what sort of results companies would unveil during profit season.
"It's been a pretty steady day … we haven't had a lot in the way of profit numbers today," he said, adding that "… "the main game is still earnings".
There was little direction from the US market overnight with Wall Street stocks closing marginally higher after a broker's upgrade helped boost shares in bauxite miner and aluminium refiner Alcoa.
Local miners ran into profit-taking. BHP Billiton dropped 15c to $25.70, Rio Tinto 51c to $75.06 and Alumina 2c $7.59.
In banking, the Commonwealth slipped 23c to $43.90, ANZ fell 9c to $25.01 and Westpac dropped 8c to $23.50. NAB rose 2c to $35.08.
Insurer IAG fell 7c to $5.53 after signing a memorandum of understanding on its proposed investment in China Pacific Property Insurance Co.
A drop in the oil price overnight saw oil and gas producer Santos slip 15c to $12.95 while Woodside Petroleum tumbled $1.25 to $42.75 on fresh reports of its disagreement with the Mauritanian government.
In media, PBL rose 5c to $16.13 and John Fairfax dipped 7c to $4.04.
Wheat exporter AWB fell 45c to $4.19 as its alleged payments to Saddam Hussein's regime became the centre of attention in Federal Parliament yesterday.
Macquarie Equities said the stock might drop as much as 18 per cent to around $3.45.
Flight Centre shot up $1.36, or 14.9 per cent, to $10.50 after the global travel retailer said it expected to report a pre-tax profit of around $22.8 million for the second quarter of 2005-06.
Virgin Blue was steady at $1.66. The company is cautiously optimistic about its prospects this financial year, investors at its AGM heard yesterday.
Billabong International shares shed 59c, or 3.9 per cent, to $14.71. Analysts at Macquarie Equities cut the stock's rating to "neutral" from "outperform".
Primary Health Care jumped 41c to $11.69 after the health care provider boosted its net profit for the first six months of the year by 25 per cent to $22.4 million.
Explosives and chemicals firm Orica climbed 36c to $22.06 after announcing it would raise up to $500 million to fund its acquisition of some of the business of Norwegian explosives firm Dyno Nobel.
Record Investments jumped 24c to $9.03 as first-half profit rose 80 per cent to $46 million.
Telstra fell 2c to $4.02 while Optus owner Singapore Telecom added 3c to $2.11.
Gold stocks were mixed with Newcrest Mining rising 12c to $26.67. PNG-based Lihir Gold dipped 3c to $2.29.
The top traded stock by volume was Extract Resources with 80.59 million shares changing hands. They rose 1c to 10c.