Elders Profit Up As Dividends Return
No wonder Elders shares went for a big run yesterday – the company is paying its first dividends in nine years after more than doubling net profit for 2016-17.
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AdBri Investigates ‘Hidden’ Underpayments
Adelaide Brighton shareholders were remarkably relaxed about the news yesterday of a bad debts problem that could end up as $14 million earnings downgrade for 2017.
Read MoreMACA Slammed On Earnings Downgrade
It’s been an all too familiar for the mining services sector in the past few years. Tough times for clients means cost cuts, investment spending curtailed and job losses. Add to that a now equally familiar story of acquisitions underperforming, or going bad, and the result has been a shock downgrade and a pounding from worried investors who send the shares south.
Read MoreIress Flags Weaker Earnings
So is this an earnings downgrade you announce while not announcing one?
Read MoreNine, Seven Provide Conflicting FTA TV Outlooks
A take of two TV networks and their outlooks:
Read MoreRio Tinto Rumours Keep Rolling
The stories about Rio Tinto keep coming – the latest is that Mick Davis, the former Xstrata boss and current chief executive of Britain’s Conservative Party, is said to be the tip to become Rio’s new chair when the incumbent, Jan du Plessis steps down next year.
Read MoreUS Earnings Top Expectations
A largely very positive US September quarter earnings reporting season (especially for the big tech stocks) is now largely complete with 91% of the 500 companies in the S&P Index having reported.
Read MoreNew General Electric CEO To Unveil Painful Revamp
General Electric saw its shares rise 2.5% on Friday ahead of an expected announcement tonight, our time of a plan from its new CEO to improve the company’s sagging financial performance.
Read MoreASX Outperforms Over The Week
The ASX is heading for another indifferent start to trading later this morning after Wall Street and Europe ended their sessions on Friday night weaker and worried.
Read MoreRBA Minutes Confirm Meet, Hold, Repeat Stance
No rate rise in Australia for a year or more after the release of the Reserve Bank’s 4th and final Statement on Monetary Policy for 2017 on Friday.
Read MoreDiary: Local Wages, CBA AGM, US Inflation
A quieter week – sort of – with some important data here and in the US and Europe, some major corporate reports and meetings and a few speeches by senior Fed members ahead of next week’s meeting and an expected rate rise.
Read MoreOil’s Slippery Rally Rolls On
Oil up, gold weaker, but higher, copper off the pace, nickel down, but iron ore enjoyed a quiet rally last week by the close on Friday.
Read MoreSoggy September To Weigh On GDP
September is turning out to be a rough month for the economy. The mixed nature of official statistics suggests that economic activity ended the quarter on a sluggish note, suggesting that the national accounts for the three months could be weaker than some forecasters have thought.
Read MoreWhat Is Taking The Shine Off Gold?
More evidence that for all the talk about a commodity boom, gold continues miss out – the price, while it is up just over 10% in the year so far, is not responding to rising demand for the metal.
Read MoreEurope Push Sees Investors Overlook Weaker James Hardie Result
On Wednesday investors didn’t like the fact that James Hardie was spending more than $A700 million expanding in Europe and Germany in particular so they sold down the shares – which closed down 1.5% after being down twice that in early trading.
Read MoreFlight Centre Flags Profit Lift
Travel group, Flight Centre has gone all bullish about its outlook for 2017-18, forecasting not only a solid December half, but a full year profit rise of 15%.
Read MoreSantos Rally Stalls On Stable Production, Lower Sales
What a difference a rising oil price is making to the tone and confidence of major oil and energy companies here and offshore. Majors like BP and Shell are not upbeat and talking about expansion – ConocoPhillips has boosted its planned spending, Total is going deeper into LNG, while back home Woodside is looking at expansion on the northwest shelf and Santos, which was up to earlier this year on life support, is now far more optimistic about its future and planning to boost spending in 2018.
Read MoreXero Ditches Kiwi Exchange For ASX
Kiwi cloud accounting software group, Xero has stunned the New Zealand investment community by deciding to delist from the NZ stock exchange and rebase its primary listing on the ASX from early 2018.
Read MoreOn Hold RBNZ Mirrors RBA
Once again the Reserve Bank of NZ has left its key interest rate unchanged at 1.75% in an echo of the decision and reasoning used by the Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday.
Read MoreChina October Trade Softer, But Solid
China’s imports of iron ore, crude oil, coal and copper all fell in October, slowing after strong demand drove global prices of many major commodities higher this year.
Read MoreVirgin Australia Board Mulls Privatisation
Put this one in the ‘who cares?’ basket.
Read MoreJames Hardie Builds European Footprint
James Hardie reports its second quarter and first half figures later this morning and it set the share price running ahead of that announcement yesterday of a near three quarters of a billion acquisition in Europe.
Read MoreNew Ardent Boss In Sudden Departure
Investors sold down Ardent shares yesterday after CEO Simon Kelly resigned unexpectedly and without explanation from either him or the company.
Read MoreCBA Q1 Profits Rises 6%
In news that will help steady a weak banking sector on the ASX, the Commonwealth Bank has revealed a solid 6% plus rise in first quarter cash earnings.
Read MoreBattery Minerals ‘Non-Core’ At BHP
Reuters reported last week that Arnoud Balhuizen, chief commercial officer at BHP, has said that while 2017 marks a “tipping point” for electric vehicles (in that they have entered the mainstream of metals demand forecasting), in terms of sales, however, the mass move is further off as hybrids and conventional cars stay on the roads for a transition period.
Read MoreRBA Remains On Repeat
As expected, no rate rise from the Reserve Bank yesterday and none for months to come, perhaps into 2019 if the interest rate futures market is any guide.
Read MoreGlobal Markets Trim Gains
Markets turned down overnight Tuesday in a reversal of Monday’s bullish session with Wall Street lower and off the previous record highs, gold and oil weaker, along with iron ore prices.
Read MoreTracking Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio
Buried in Berkshire Hathaway’s third quarter fine print was a break down of the company’s investment portfolio that confirms that 2016-17 has seen perhaps the most significant change in its composition for decades.
Read MoreOil At $70 Before Year End?
Remarkably, $US70 a barrel for oil is no longer a dream in the current market surge, but what is even more astounding is that analysts are now saying it is possible by the end of the year.
Read MoreEnergy Costs Dim Orica Outlook
Shares in Orica fell 12% on Monday after the explosives and chemicals supplier reported weak full-year earnings, trimmed its final dividend and forecast a tough outlook for the coming year as improvements demand for explosives and its other products are slow to have an impact on its revenue and profit and loss account.
Read MoreBank Earnings Review
So much for all the moaning and groaning from the big four banks this week about the impact of the way the federal government and opposition were taking pot shots at them earlier in the year – the bank levy imposed in the 2017-18 budget, Labor’s calls for a banking royal commission, the toughening of regulations governing bank managements and the way the regulators forced the banks to boost their capital to make them “unquestionably strong’?
Read MoreSellers Savage McGrath On New Downgrade
Shares in real estate agency group McGrath closed badly battered yesterday after the Sydney-based real estate company cut its earnings guidance and promised an intense round of cost cutting.
Read MoreWestpac Profit Up 3% To $8.06 Billion
Westpac has joined its peers in leaving dividends unchanged for the year to September 30 after reporting a 3% rise in cash earnings for the year to $8.062 billion.
Read MoreASX Ends Week With 1% Gain
The Australian market will be looking for the rebound to continue today after ASX 200 futures gained 16 points or 0.3% overnight Friday.
Read MoreUS Oil Rigs See Biggest Decline Of The Year
Another solid week for commodities and the slow burning boomlet continues (which other media are now slowly waking up to).
Read MoreHurricanes Rain On Berkshire’s Quarterly Profit
Big losses from three hurricanes and an earthquake in Mexico in the September quarter hit the results for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway group and has put it on course to report its first annual insurance underwriting loss in 15 years.
Read MoreDiary: Cup Day RBA, China Inflation, US Retail Earnings
A much quieter week ahead and monetary policy decisions of the Reserve Bank and its NZ counterpart will dominate markets in this neck of the woods.
Read MoreAmazon’s Victims Set To Report Earnings
Now for some bad news for US third quarter earnings from some of the country’s struggling retailers.
Read MoreApple Shares Hit New Highs On Q4 Earnings Beat
Apple shares leap to new highs this morning in the regular session and then scooted higher in after hours trading after the company revealed better than expected 4th quarter earnings and sales of iPhones.
Read MoreBoral Begrudgingly Lifts Earnings Outlook
A year ago Boral shareholders heard complaints from management in the August results and the annual meeting about the impact of weeks of wet weather on its operations along the Australian east coast. In fact the delays had a real impact on sales of its building products in these markets for most of 2016-17.
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