Apple Surprises As Twitter Underwhelms
A tale of two tech stocks this morning, and two different tales to tell. Twitter and Apple, saw their shares follow different paths after they released quarterly figures.
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ALS Warns Earnings Yet To Bottom
The news wasn’t encouraging yesterday for shareholders in Brisbane-based testing giant, ALS (ALQ), which only a month and a bit ago rejected an unwanted $2.7 billion takeover approach.
Read MoreNorthern Star Rides Gold Revival
Gold miner Northern Star Resources (NST) has lifted final dividend by 33% after a 60% boost to full year earnings as it rode the gold price revival very nicely in 2015-16.
Read MoreMarkets Await CPI Print
Attention later this morning on the June quarter Consumer Price Index (CPI) report and its various measures of inflation, and whether they will mean anything for local interest rates.
Read MoreLIC AMCIL Lifts Profit 10%
Listed investment company AMCIL Limited (AMH) lifted profit 10% for the year to June, thanks to good performances by its investments in small and medium company stocks.
Read MoreAFIC Rotates Out Of Banks
Australian Foundation Investment Co (AFIC) is sending a big message to small investors – be wary of the big banks. Joining a senior fund manager from Perpetual in warning about the sustainability of the banks as big dividend generators, AFIC yesterday revealed that it was matching its words with action by selling down its stakes in the big banks.
Read MoreNewcrest Hits Gold Targets
Newcrest Mining’s (NCM) gold output fell in the June hit by a shutdown at its Indonesian mines, but it’s still managed to meet its full-year target.
Read MoreInvestors Wait On Central Bankers
While the Reserve Bank of Australia will be a bystander (but watching our inflation data) and across the Tasman, the Reserve Bank of NZ will be girding its loins for a rate cut the week after, but all eyes will be on a clutch of central banks this week, led by the Fed, and then the Bank of Japan.
Read MoreDick Smith Creditors Confirm Liquidation
Dick Smith is no more after creditors yesterday voted to wind up the electronics retailer in a bid to recoup some of the $260 million in losses. But getting a decent return for creditors is unlikely to happen and the returns will be tiny.
Read MoreWoolies Restructures As Losses Widen
Woolworths (WOW) shares leapt more than 7% yesterday as the company unveiled a second round of house cleaning at a cost of more than $900 million, on top of the $3.2 billion plus of losses and impairments revealed in February.
Read MoreApple Highlights Next Wave Of US Earnings
The health of the US earnings season will be known this week with nearly 200 S&P 500 companies due to report results and that will be dominated by figures from a handful of tech giants.
Read MoreOil Sinks To 11-Week Low
Global oil prices are slowly tipping over and heading south after they hit 11-week lows late last week.
Read MoreGlobal Shares Climb As Brexit Fears Soften
Market sentiment will be tested heavily in the next five days by a combination of central bank meetings, a stronger US dollar, data releases around the world and quarterly earnings reports in the US and Europe.
Read MoreDiary: Fed, BOJ, Local Inflation
It’s a big, big week here and around the world for central banks profits and markets, while in Australia its inflation and interest rates that will dominate.
Read MoreAsaleo Comes Clean On Profit Slump
There’s no sympathy given in the markets for companies that produce surprises, especially on the downside.
Read MoreKiwi Downturn Outweighs Brexit Risks
A report from the Council of Regulators yesterday made it clear there would only be a limited impact on Australia and Australian banks and companies from the shock June 23 Brexit vote in Britain.
Read MoreAsciano Deal Clears Final Hurdle
After 11 months the $9 billion plus battle to take control of ports and rail operator, Asciano is now in the home straight following yesterday’s greenlight for the deal from the ACCC, the country’s competition watchdog.
Read MoreWatchdog Greenlights Metcash Hardware Deal
Metcash has been given the OK by a key regulator for its rumoured acquisition of Woolworths’ Home Timber & Hardware (HTH), setting up a merger between its Mitre 10 network and the creation of a viable challenger to Bunnings, the sector leader owned by Wesfarmers.
Read MoreAurizon Confirms More Cuts
The other shoe dropped at rail group, Aurizon late yesterday – 15 days ago it revealed a restructure and slimming of top management jobs – it revealed another write off of its abortive WA iron ore play, more job cuts among employees, and said 2015-16 results would be a bit better than expected.
Read MoreWoodside Earnings Hit By Low Energy Prices
Revenue earned by Woodside Petroleum in the six months to June from sales of LNG, oil and other products plunged by just on a quarter from a year earlier as the company continued to battle of the two year slide in global prices.
Read MoreOil Search Abandons InterOil Bid
Oil Search has abandoned its bid for InterOil, as many in the markets had expected after ExxonMobil came in over the top with a higher-priced counter offer at the start of this week.
Read MoreBig Funds Increase Cash Holdings
It’s not just the International Monetary Fund which has grown more cautious in the wake of the uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote in the UK nearly a month ago (which this week caused it to trim its 2016 and 2017 global economic growth forecasts by 0.1%).
Read MoreLow Inflation Set To Trigger RBNZ Cut
The Reserve Bank of NZ will almost certainly cut interest rates at its next monetary policy meeting in early August, according to an economic update from the central bank this morning. And there could be more cuts to follow if inflation doesn’t pick up.
Read MoreCIMIC Dumped After H1 Results
When the half year results for contractor and engineering group CIMIC (the old Leighton Holdings) were slipped out on Tuesday night, well after trading had closed, they looked odd – a small rise in profit on a 30% plus plunge in revenue.
Read MoreBHP Misses Iron Ore Guidance
As expected BHP Billiton has fallen short of its 2016-17 iron ore production targets but has topped its full year guidance for petroleum, copper and coking coal.
Read MoreDjerriwarrh Dividend Cut After Dip In Profits
Is this the shape of things to come for some or most of our large group of Listed Investment Companies?
Read MoreRBA Minutes Confirm Easing Bias
Yesterday’s minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia’s July monetary policy meeting was all about the chances of a rate cut in a fortnight’s time – the line was that it is only a matter of time if the consumer inflation data next Wednesday is weak, according to most economists.
Read MoreRio Misses Optimistic Ore Targets
The market ignored the breathlessly reported admonition that Rio Tinto (RIO) might “have to lift its game” in coming months of this year if it is to hit its annual iron ore production targets after output from its huge Pilbara mines Western Australia was softer than expected in the June quarter and half year.
Read MoreBuffett’s New Insurance ‘Gem’
What is it about insurance companies that gets Warren Buffett drooling?
Read MoreNetflix Subscriber Growth Slows
Netflix shares plunged more than 15% in after hours trading in the US this morning after the streaming video giant revealed a sharp slowdown in new subscriber numbers in the three months to June 30.
Read MoreChina House Price Gains Cool
More signs China’s housing boomlet is slowing, with momentum becoming patchy in sectors.
Read MoreSoftBank Shrugs Off Brexit In Mega Deal
Japan’s SoftBank has ignored Brexit, but taken advantage of the slide in the value of the pound to launch an agreed 23.4 billion pound, or $A41 billion offer to acquire Britain’s key technology company, Arm Holdings, which makes chips for iPhones and other smartphones.
Read MoreOil Search Trumped In PNG Gas Deal
ExxonMobil Corp has come in over Oil Search (OSH) and made a counter bid that tops the latter’s $US2.2 billion (A3 billion) offer for InterOil Corp.
Read MoreDiary: US Earnings, RBA Minutes, Resource Reports
After the past couple of weeks it looks like a quiet week ahead for events and data, except for a couple of things – the usual step up in the US quarterly reporting season and the latest policy meeting of the European Central Bank.
Read MoreGold Snaps Winning Streak
Gold had its biggest fall for the first time in nearly two months last week as investor appetite for riskier investments became the norm again.
Read MoreRisk Appetite Returns, ASX Adds 3.8%
Riskier investments were back in vogue last week and stockmarkets reacted accordingly with widespread gains, which are likely to continue into the coming week.
Read MoreUS Reporting Set To Step Up
The US June quarter earnings reporting season accelerates this week with 91 S&P 500 companies due to report.
Read MoreChina GDP Adds 6.7% In Q2
The big takeaway from the Chinese second quarter GDP and the monthly economic data for June is that Chinese growth remains hooked up to the stimulus pouring into the economy in the first quarter and subsequent revival in property.
Read MoreBoE Holds As Wall St Sets Another Record
Markets rallied strongly overnight after the Bank of England postponed for three weeks a cut in UK interest rates.
Read MoreBlueScope Upgrades Again
BlueScope (BSL) shares surged yesterday after the steelmaker revealed a 4th profit upgrade in 9 months – proving that the anti-dumping curbs on steel imports from China in particular can be a profit booster, along with staff cuts and state aid from the NSW government, and surprisingly, rising returns in the US and global steel markets.
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