Finance news you need to know today

BUNNINGS boss John Gillam is stepping down after wiping the floor with the competition in his time at the helm of the hardware chain.

HERE are eight things making news in business and finance around the world today.

1. SYDNEY — The Australian dollar is little changed as traders take a breather ahead of the release of Australian GDP figures and next week’s US interest rates meeting. At 0700 AEDT on Wednesday, the local unit was trading at 74.57 US cents, up marginally from 74.51 cents on Tuesday.

2. SYDNEY — The Australian share market is expected to make slim gains at the open after concerns about oil output weighed on prices and tempered gains on Wall Street overnight. At 0645 AEDT on Tuesday, the share price index was up 12 points, or 0.22 per cent, at 5,440.

3. SYDNEY — Bunnings chief executive and managing director John Gillam is stepping down.

Mr Gillam, who has been with parent company Wesfarmers for nearly 20 years and head of Bunnings since 2004, will continue to support the hardware business in an advisory role.

Bunnings Australia and New Zealand head Mike Schneider and Bunnings UK and Ireland head Peter Davis will now report directly to Wesfarmers managing director Richard Goyder.

4. LONDON — The US trade deficit recorded its biggest increase in more than one and a half years in October as exports of soybeans and other products fell, suggesting trade would be a drag on growth in the fourth quarter.

5. NEW YORK — The euro has slipped from three-week highs against the US dollar following a strong rally on Monday, as investors awaited Thursday’s highly anticipated European Central Bank policy meeting.

6. BRUSSELS — Microsoft won EU antitrust approval for its $26 billion bid for professional social network LinkedIn, its largest ever acquisition, after agreeing to a series of modest concessions.

7. NEW YORK/SINGAPORE — Saudi Aramco cut the January price for its Arab Light crude for Asian customers to the lowest in four months as it holds to a strategy of preserving market share in the world’s fastest-growing demand centre.

8. NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump says the head of Japanese telecoms and internet firm SoftBank Group Corp has agreed to invest $67 billion in the US toward businesses and create 50,000 new jobs.