The Australian December half and full year profit reporting season is heading into its last week and peak with 83 major companies reporting including QBE, BHP Billiton, Qantas, Wesfarmers, Woolworths and Harvey Norman.
Of those the results from BHP and Qantas (both tomorrow) and Woolworths on Friday will dominate the week. BHP for its loss and dividend decision, Qantas for the size of its profit and whether a dividend or some sort of capital management will happen,and Woolies for any sign of write downs on its disastrous Masters hardware adventure.
Others to report include Brambles, Caltex (full year), Flight Centre. Ramsay Health Care, Blackmores, Asciano, Fortescue and Westfield.
A feature of the week is that besides Woolies, results are expected from some of other retailers, such as Wesfarmers and its Coles, Bunnings, Kmart and other chains, Harvey Norman, Billabong and Fantastic Holdings.
A number of media stocks will also report this week, including Nine, APN, Southern Cross Austero and Prime Media.
The AMP’s chief economist, Dr Shane Oliver says “overall results have continued to come in much better than feared. 54% of results have bettered expectations (against a norm of 44%), 68% have seen profits up on a year ago and 69% have raised their dividends relative to a year ago (against a norm of 62%).
“It’s tough out there for resources stocks but no more than expected. While they are cutting their dividends note that mining stocks are now less than 10% of the market (believe it or not Rio is just 1.5% of the market and BHP just 4.2%!).”
He says most of the big banks are seeing reasonable results (CBA and the trading updates last week for the first quarter from the NAB and ANZ) and stocks exposed to the Australian economy, led by housing and the consumer are doing well. Company guidance has had a slight positive skew.
"The better than feared nature of the results to date has been reflected in 66% of stocks seeing their share price outperform the market the day results were released. Of course, there is still a way to go and good results have a habit of coming out early in the reporting season,“ Dr Oliver said.
Comsec economists noted at the weekend that more companies than expected are either lifting dividends, or maintaining them.
Among those today are Brambles, Southern Cross Austereo, BlueScope Steel and UGL. Tomorrow, results are expected from companies including BHP Billiton, QBE, Qantas, Oil Search, Caltex and Healthscope.
On Wednesday we will get results from Flight Centre, Wesfarmers, Worley Parsons, Asciano, Macquarie Telecom, MacMahon and Fortescue Metals.
Thursday will see results from the likes of Seven Group, Ramsay Health Care, Alumina, South32, Blackmores, Nine Entertainment, Crown Resorts, Adelaide Brighton, APN News and Media and Breville Group.
And finally, Friday will see earnings are expected from Woolworths, Westfield, Prime Media, Cabcharge, Harvey Norman, Billabong and Fantastic Holdings.
