The June 30 reporting season hits its peak week over the next five days with around 100 major companies reporting – from BHP, Woolworths, to Qantas, IAG and a group of media companies on Thursday.
Today sees reports from companies including APN Outdoor, BlueScope Steel, Fortescue Metals, Bellamy’s, Beach Energy, Brambles, GWA, Cardno and Goodman Group.
Tomorrow sees BHP lead the way followed by, Amcor and Aconex, Inghams, Macmahon Holdings, Monadelpous, Oil Search, Sydney Airport and Noni B.
On Wednesday Woolworths is the biggie, with reports coming from APA Group, Bapcor, Coca Cola Amatil (Half year), Charter Hall, The Reject Shop, Qube, IAG, Lovisa Holdings, Speciality Fashion Group, Healthscope, Vocus, Tassal and WorleyParsons.
On Thursday reports are expected from the likes of Bega Cheese, AP Eagers, Hills, Estia Health, Flight Centre, Infigen, OZ Minerals (half year), Southern Cross Austrero, Prime Media, Nine Entertainment, Village Roadshow, Costa Group, McGrath and Santos (half year).
Friday sees Qantas, Automotive Holdings, Macquarie Telecom, Medibank Private, Mayne Pharma, Platinium Asset Management, Reece, Super Retail and Webster due to release their figures.
A total of 73 companies have so far reported this earnings season. According to David Cassidy, the equity strategist at UBS. “underwhelming guidance” is the standout trend.
“However, we don’t necessarily see this as a black mark for the domestic economy as some of the cautious guidance relates to quite globally focussed companies and some of the guidance disappointment relates to the cost of ‘investing for growth’," Mr Cassidy said on Friday.
"While we are still only roughly at the half-way mark, we believe reporting season is confirming a corporate backdrop of moderate earnings growth and a moderate growth outlook; albeit seemingly even more moderate than the consensus was expecting."
The AMP’s Chief Economist, Dr Shane Oliver said on the weekend, “We are now about 45% through the June half earnings reporting season and results remains mixed. 41% of results have exceeded expectations which is the weakest since 2013 (see the first chart below), outlook guidance has been a bit soft and reflecting this only 50% of companies have seen their share price outperform the market on the day they reported.
“Against all this of course, earnings are up with 73% of companies reporting higher profits than a year ago and 71% have increased dividends from a year ago – although Telstra’s cut to future dividends was taken as a huge disappointment.
“2016-17 earnings growth is on track to come in at around 18% with resources up 132% (down a bit from initial expectations) and the market excluding resources up 6% (which is a bit above initial expectations).
"Expectations for the current financial year have been revised down a bit to 1.6% though.
“ Key themes have been: large caps doing better than small caps; moderate revenue growth with the domestic economy just okay; some disappointment from foreign earners; and dividends (ex Telstra) continuing to roar ahead,” he wrote in his weekly note.
