A miserable month, quarter and financial year for the Australian stockmarket.
By the close of trading yesterday the ASX 200 had fallen for a fourth month in a row – down 4.8% in June. That produced a nasty 7.3% slide for the June quarter. The market was up a whole 48 points for the six months to June.
And for the 2014-15 financial year, the ASX 200 moved from 5395.70 on June 30, 2014 to 5459 yesterday – that was a gain of just over 63 points, or around 1.1%.
The ASX 200 finished the financial year yesterday up 0.67%, or 36 points higher, at 5459, after trading flat for most of the session. The All Ordinaries added 0.6%, or 34 points, to 5451.2.
The Australian dollar fell 19% over the financial year against the greenback and around 11% against the basket of currencies measured by the Trade Weighted Index.
The currency hardly moved in June and the June quarter, but fell by around 7% in the first six months of 20-15 (all against the US currency).
Gold fell 11% in the financial year, oil was down 44%, coal down 20% or more, depending on type and iron ore fell 34%.
On early figures, the key losing sectors here have been energy (down around 24%, and understandable given the slump in world oil prices), capital goods (down nearly 19% and understandable given the ending of the resources boom), media (down 17% and after downgrades by Seven West Media, Ten and then Nine Entertainment).
The consumer durable and apparel sector has jumped 45% (Pacific Brands is back in favour, which tells us how tenuous this rebound is), pharmaceuticals and biotechs are up 33% (understandable given the boom in the US and European markets in takeovers in this year) and transportation is up by 33% (Qantas and Virgin have benefited from the fall in pol prices). Telecoms were up nearly 20% because of the rise in Telstra’s share price and takeover activity (TPG Telecom especially).
Banks though are the mainstay of the market and they are up around 5% (they were up more in May as they started their interim reports). Resources were down around 15% (no surprise) and the real estate investment trust sector is up 21% (there are a lot of residential property groups in the sector such as Stockland and Mirvac).
And what’s the damage to super funds in the 2014-15 financial year – well returns from sharemarkets, although the weaker dollar over the year has helped push up returns from offshore for those invested in foreign equities, property and fixed interest.
Up until the end of last week, superannuation accounts were expected to finish the financial year up than 11%.
However, because of the sharemarket falls this week induced by the Greek debt crises, the typical super fund balance is down 2.1% per cent over the month of June.
SuperRatings head of research, Kirby Rappell, says the estimated return for the financial year 8.5% to 9% is still a good return.
"That is well in excess of the return objectives of most super funds, which is to produce returns over the long-term of more than 3.5 percentage points above inflation,” she said in a statement.
In the ASX 200, Qantas shares jumped 150% in the financial year, Select Harvests was up more than 111%, M2 Group added 85% (because of the bidding war for iiNet), TPG was up 63%, Domino’s Pizza added 66% and Evolution mining rose nearly 76%.
Arrium led the losers with an 80% loss, UGL was down 69%, Bradken shed 62% (and would have been worse but for muted takeover approaches), Metcash slid 58%, Fortescue lost 56%, Kathmandu shed 46% and would have been worse except for the surprise takeover yesterday from Briscoe’s.
Santos shed 45% (understandable given the slide in energy prices, but it was also lower at the start of the year and was widely tipped to be a ‘victim’. But it’s shares have recovered as the oil price rose in the June half year.
