Fed Telegraphs December Hike
The US Federal Reserve looks set to lift interest rates at its December meeting after leaving them unchanged this morning.
Read MoreHarvey Norman Lifts Q1 Profit 26%
Like JB Hi-Fi (JBH), Harvey Norman (HVN) is riding the collapse of smaller rival, Dick Smith, very nicely.
Read MoreRio Games Rescue Prime Media
More gloom from the embattled media sector with regional free to air broadcaster, Prime Media Group (PRT) forecasting its December half-year net profit will come in between $15.3 million and $16.3 million, little changed from what the company earned in the December 2015 half.
Read MoreCommodities Roar Back To Life
The boom is well and truly back – judging by the near 8% surge in the Reserve Bank’s commodity price index for October, released yesterday.
Read MoreRBA Shifts Focus To 2017
We told you last week the Reserve Bank would not move interest rates at its meeting yesterday and that’s what it did. Now it will remain a holding pattern well into 2017.
Read MoreBoJ Misses Inflation Target
The Bank of Japan has finally admitted that it will not reach its long targeted 2% inflation before the end of Haruhiko Kuroda’s term as governor in April 2018, despite spending trillions of yen in the world’s largest example of quantitative easing, plus dabbling with negative interest rates.
Read MoreASX Posts Red October
Australia wasn’t alone with our market off 2.5% in October – Wall Street also suffered losses as did Hong Kong. Tokyo rose by nearly 6% in a solid performance, but gold eased, as did oil.
Read MoreANZ Divests Asian Retail Bank To DBS
The ANZ Bank (ANZ) continues to clean up its balance sheet. Last Friday it revealed another $360 million in losses and write downs of assets and including $100 million in new restructuring costs.
Read MoreCompetition Issues Cloud Media Deals
Some of the biggest and most recent media deals in Australasia have been thrown into doubt by a shock announcement from the NZ Commission Commission that could halt the proposed $NZ3 billion merger of Sky TV, the country’s only Pay TV operator, and Vodafone NZ.
Read MoreQantas Profit Descends
Qantas (QAN) warned yesterday in its first ever quarterly trading update that it expects underlying first-half net profit to fall by up to 13% as the oversupply of international capacity sees air fares slide to some of the lowest seen for 20 to 30 years.
Read MoreWoodside Talks Down Wheatstone Costs
Investors in Woodside Petroleum (WPL) accepted its assurances yesterday that it would not be hit by the $US5 billion blowout in the cost of the Chevron run Wheatstone export LNG project off the WA northwest coast.
Read MoreUS Earnings Top Expectations
Oil, European banks and media giants will dominate the US September quarter earnings reports this week.
Read MoreANZ Flags $360 Million Hit From New Charges
The ANZ Bank (ANZ) reports its 2015-16 full year figures on Thursday and ahead of that release, it has boosted its full year write offs and losses to more than $1 billion with another round of charges revealed on Friday. The bank said it will take a $360 million hit in the September 30 half after the lender unveiled new charges for at-risk debts and restructuring costs.
Read MoreOil Eases Ahead Of OPEC Meeting
Oil futures fell ahead of a weekend meeting by OPEC countries to discuss progress on talks on a production cap.
Read MorePolitics Trumps US GDP
Watch for a weak and nervous start to trading in Australia and Asia in the wake of the news that the FBI announced it had reopened an investigation into Hiliary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Read MoreDiary: RBA, BoJ, BOE, Corporate Earnings
It is going to be another one of those big weeks for investors, companies and economies generally around the globe as the world’s major central banks meet, US jobs data is released, major media groups report (along with more big oil companies) and surveys of global manufacturing and service sector activity are released.
Read MoreAMP Attempts To End Life Insurance Woes
The AMP has given itself a big financial whack by taking on over half a billion in writedowns and other costs to clean up its messy life insurance business- especially its TPD and disability insurance. But shareholders won’t feel the impact of the losses because they are considered to be a one off, according to the board.
Read MoreBlackmores Boom Fades
More pressure on Blackmores (BKL) and Bega Cheese (BGA) yesterday, continuing the pain triggered by Tuesday’s revelation by Bega of problems in the new joint venture with the vitamins group and weak trading forecast for the full financial year.
Read MoreJB Hi-Fi Upbeat, Q1 Sales Rise 12%
Consumer electronics retailer JB Hi-Fi (JBH) had good news about its first quarter sales performance ahead of the completion of its Good Guys takeover at the end of next month.
Read MoreTerms Of Trade Set To Turn
The growing rebound in global commodity prices – led by iron ore, coal, sugar and oil and gas (to name a few) – looks set to produce the first annual rise in our terms of trade for five years or more.
Read MoreUncertainty Reigns At Ardent
Shares in Ardent Leisure (AAD) bounced higher yesterday in something of a relief rally, despite shareholders being told the financial impact of the Dreamworld tragedy would be “significant” and confusion about the theme park’s re-opening.
Read MoreConcentration Leaving Consumers Worse Off
Big business just doesn’t get it. At the Australian Financial Review’s Chanticleer lunch in Melbourne on Wednesday, some of our business leaders spent a lot of time urging their peers not to attack one another, or to unite on issues and policies (while admitting that a tax cut was crazy optics at the moment).
Read MoreNAB Dividend Unchanged, Completes ‘Milestone’ Year
The National Australia Bank (NAB) will pay an unchanged final dividend of 99 cents a share after reporting a forecast 4% rise in cash earnings to $6.48 billion for the year to September.
Read MoreLocal Inflation Ticks Higher
No rate cut from the Reserve Bank after the September quarter Consumer Price Index revealed a larger than expected quarter on quarter rise of 0.7% from the 0.4% in the three months to June. Economists had been looking for a rise of 0.5% from the June period, so the higher result was not too much of a surprise, or a worry.
Read MoreSupermarket War Crimps Coles Sales
Wesfarmers (WES) slid more than 5% yesterday, dragging the wider market sharply lower with it, after it revealed surprisingly weak September quarter sales figures for its Coles supermarkets chain.
Read MoreAnalysts Slice Into Bega
Bega Cheese (BGA) shares were again sold off yesterday, joined this time by shares in Blackmores (BKL), (its milk joint venture partner) ahead of its AGM in Sydney today.
Read MoreApple Earnings Beat Lowered Expectations
Apple shares had jumped 22% in the three months to Monday’s close on Wall Street and this morning’s 4th quarter and full year figures from the tech giant confirmed why that rebound had happened (taking many investors by surprise).
Read MoreIron Ore Gets Bullish
Iron ore continued its boomlet overnight Tuesday, jumping past $US60 a tonne for the first time in two months.
Read MoreBega Sours, China Push Stalls
What a difference three months make.
Read MoreBendigo Joins Anti Commission Chorus
Shareholders in Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (BEN) yesterday heard a now familiar refrain from a bank CEO about whether all of a Reserve Bank rate cut should be passed on.
Read MoreArdent Under Pressure After Tragedy
Ardent Leisure (AAD) shares face a pummelling this morning after the deaths of four people at the company’s Dreamworld theme park on the Gold Coast yesterday.
Read MoreWorleyParsons Downbeat, Profit Slides
WorleyParsons (WOR) has yet to see enough improvement in activity to agree with its larger rivals, Halliburton and Schlumberger that the slide in the oil and gas business is over and 2017 will see slow rebound.
Read MoreGreencross Upbeat As Sales Strengthen
Pet care giant Greencross saw its shares hit a two month high yesterday after it revealed a pick up in sales growth in the opening weeks of 2016-17.
Read MoreChina Oceanwide Bails Out Genworth
When is a rescue not a rescue, when it is a bailout?
Read MoreGinger Coke Still Flat
Ginger coke just doesn’t cut it, certainly so far as investors in Coca Cola Amatil (CCL) are concerned?
Read MoreMasters Discounting Dents Super Cheap Sales
Super Retail Group (SUL) says it had made a solid start to the 2017 financial year, with profit in line with budget, but its core car products and tool group, the foundation Supercheap Auto chain, is feeling the pinch from the wind down of the failed Masters chain of hardware stores by Woolworths (WOW).
Read MoreNAB Litmus Test For Bank Investors
The National Australia Bank (NAB) releases its full year figures this Thursday and while the earnings figure will generate headlines, that is not going to be the centre of attention.
Read MoreAT&T To Acquire Time Warner In Media Mega Deal
The $US85 billion AT&T agreed bid to buy cable giant, Time Warner will not be easy and could very well be blocked, despite what American urgers for the deal claim.
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