Westfield Restructures, Sells US Shopping Centres
Westfield (WDC) brought itself a bit more market favour yesterday with a $US1.6 billion restructuring of its international shopping centre portfolio, the third such move this year.
Read More
Summers’ Exit Boosts Markets
The local market hit new five year highs yesterday and the Aussie dollar scampered back over the 93 USc level and almost reached 94c after senior US economist and policymaker Larry Summers ruled himself out of the race to replace Ben Bernnake as head of the US Federal Reserve from early 2014.
Read MoreMarkets Calm Ahead Of Fed Taper
Like gold and other markets, shares will be driven by sentiment about the Fed’s expected easing.
Read MoreThe Week Ahead
Now for the biggest week of the year for investors and markets around the world with the US Federal Reserve set to start cutting its $US85 billion a month of stimulatory spending.
Read MoreWill Gold Take Another Battering As The Fed Slows?
After the sharp sell-off late last week, gold faces another moment of truth with this week’s two-day meeting of the US Federal Reserve which is expected to start cutting the size of the $US85 billion a month in spending that has supported financial markets and economies around the world, especially America’s.
Read MoreUnemployment At 15-Year High As Jobs Disappear
Well, not good news from the labour market yesterday with the highest level of unemployment since the late 1990s the unemployment rate at a four year high and the key participation rate at a multi year low.
Read MoreBega Cheese Sees Warrnambool As A Tasty Prize
Can a $319 million bid bring about a mega merger in Australian food and get through what will be a close examination by the competition regulator, ACCC?
Read MoreMyer Moans, Posts Weak Result
More moaning from Myer (MYR) CEO Bernie Brooks yesterday about the impact of high wages, rents, taxes, online purchases and utility costs on the retailer as he tried to explain an unexpected 8.7% fall in net profit, to $127 million for the year to July 27.
Read MoreMcMillan Attempts To Clear The Air
Shares in salary packaging company McMillan Shakespeare (MMS) recovered some of this week’s 6.1% sell-off yesterday after the company spoke to the investment community for the first time in six weeks.
Read MoreGold Under Pressure
Gold prices are under pressure as the market wonders what will happen to the price of the precious metal after next week’s two day meeting of the US Federal Reserve which is expected to start reducing its current round of quantitative easing.
Read MorePatties Foods Loses CEO
A weak result for the 2012-13 year has caught up with the CEO of small Victorian food group Patties Foods (PFL) which owns the iconic Herbert Adams and Nanna Pies brands.
Read MoreYet Another Life For Elders
Another life for struggling rural group, Elders (ELD) with news its banks have given it new finance facilities totaling up to $414 million, but at the cost of finding $25 million in new cost cuts.
Read MoreGoodman Fielder On The Way Back, Resumes Dividends
Struggling food group, Goodman Fielder (GFF) should no longer be described as being ‘struggling‘ as the 2012-13 result reveals a company that is now well into a recovery phase with improving prospects, which is a long way from the way it looked a couple of years ago as it faced tough trading conditions, aggressive retailing customers and high raw material costs, not to mention the pressure of the high Australian dollar.
Read MoreCSL Posts 19% Net Profit Boost
CSL was another major company whose shares were sold down yesterday, despite the group reporting a very solid full year profit and a higher dividend.
Read MoreCBA Chalks Up Another Quality Result
By the close of trading yesterday investors seemed to be getting over their little hissy fit about the Commonwealth Bank’s (CBA) record $7.82 billion cash net after tax profit for the 12 months to June 30.
Read MoreStockland Clouds Report With $355 Million Writedown
You have to be a bit cynical about the result property group Stockland (SGP) released to the market yesterday, showing a 78% drop in full year profit.
Read MoreDomino’s Goes Big In Japan
Australian-listed pizza company, Domino’s (DMP) will spend more than $235 million to take over its Japanese-based sister company after reporting a solid 2012-13 result and lifting dividend.
Read MoreBradken Does Better Than The Figures Suggest
There was plenty to take away from the full year result from engineer and metal basher, Bradken (BKN).
Read MoreNewcrest Shares Jump Despite Weak Report
The bad news keeps on coming for Newcrest Mining (NCM), but the market ignored the latest bout yesterday.
Read MoreSplit News Cheers UGL Investors
The reasons for the divorce at engineer and services group, UGL are no different to the separations seen in the Murdoch media empire, at Amcor, the old Fosters, Brambles or a host of other companies.
Read MoreJB Hi Fi Shares Hit New Highs On Sales, Profit Rise
Contrary to the prevailing wisdom that retailing is a black hole and everyone is doing it tough, JB Hi Fi (JBH) confirmed that its surprise early May update of better than expected sales growth, had resulted in better than expected profit growth.
Read MoreLocal Market To Start Flat After A Surprise Fall Last Week
Surprisingly, our market ended up ignoring the goodish Chinese economic data and last Tuesday’s rate cut from the Reserve Bank and finished the week lower.
Read MoreMore Than 40 Local Companies To Report This Week
The Australian reporting season steps up this week with a host of major corporates reporting.
Read MoreAussie Dollar’s Surprise Rebound Will Worry RBA
Despite new concerns offshore about the ending of the US Federal Reserve’s easing program damaging market confidence and sending interest rates higher, the Australian dollar had its best week for two months last week.
Read MoreHint Of Dividend Lift Sends Telstra Shares Higher
In this low interest, yield hungry environment, only one thing matters for most investors in Telstra (TLS), and that’s the dividend. It’s again 28c for the financial year to June, but more importantly it could increase next year, with the interim announcement next February.
Read MoreJobless, Chinese Trade Data Buffet Markets
Markets in Australia were left a trifle confused by the combination of weak jobs data for July, and reasonable trade data from China for the same month.
Read MoreRio Raises Dividend After Weak Result
Another messy result from Rio Tinto for the six months to June 30, with more write-offs which reduced the already weak pre-tax earnings figures; a decision to abandon trying to sell its weakest aluminium assets; with the only good news, another lift in dividend to keep shareholders happy.
Read MoreHousing Rebound Continues
The slow recovery in the housing sector continued in June, but it was mostly driven by people wanting finance to buy existing homes, rather than by people wanting to build or buy new homes.
Read MoreFox’s Future Looks Shiny As Demand For Content Continues To Rise
It will have little meaning for most Australian investors, but the first annual results of the newly created 21st Century Fox Group of Rupert Murdoch clearly shows why he ended up driving the split in his empire into a content business and the old, analogue print business (with Australian pay TV assets) called News Corporation.
Read MoreFlexiGroup Looks At Strong Year Ahead
Shares in consumer finance group FlexiGroup (FXL) didn’t find the weak retail environment, especially for consumer electricals such as computers, a barrier to improving 2012-13 earnings.
Read MoreDowner Back On Track
A reborn company in Downer EDI (DOW) yesterday with a strong rise in profit, but it faces more woes in the year ahead in its mining services business, and not the usual headaches usually found in its rail contract to supply Waratah passenger train sets to the Sydney suburban system.
Read MoreAnother Rate Cut, Another Low
As expected, the Reserve Bank cut interest rates by 0.25% to a new low of 2.50% yesterday and left us up in the air about whether there might be another one.
Read MoreCochlear Confident On Nucleus 6
Despite the expected dip in profits in the year to June, shareholders in Cochlear Ltd (COH) will receive a slightly higher final dividend, on top of the raised interim.
Read MoreEnvestra Rejects APA’s Lowball Offer
If APA Holdings wants to takeover Envestra (ENV), it will have to make a realistic offer after the initial $1.98 billion share and cash offer was rejected yesterday.
Read MoreArgo Confident It Is Well-Placed In The Market
Adelaide investment company Argo Investments (ARG) remains well cashed up, with no debt to take advantage of opportunities in the year ahead after reporting a 5% rise in net profit yesterday for the June 30 year, and a small improvement in dividend.
Read MoreVirgin Australia Runs Into Turbulence A Second Time
Virgin Australia (VAH) yesterday presented investors with the bill for its aggressive expansion plan and marketing blitz and it wasn’t pretty – a loss for the year to June 30 of possibly $110 million against a profit for 2011-12 of $23 million.
Read MoreLocal Market Shrugs Off News, Data Flow
Markets are going to have another solid week, as they shrug off weak economic data, political fears and slowing economies in markets such as China, India and Brazil. But Europe is slowly recovering, the US is doing OK, but will probably do better in coming months and the Japanese economy now seems to be rebounding fairly strongly.
Read MoreAnother Cut On The Way?
Now for one of the more important weeks for the Australian economy and share market in recent memory with the Reserve Bank poised to cut rates tomorrow and a Federal election in the offing.
Read MoreThe Week Ahead
Apart from the RBA decision and the slew of economic data (see separate story), the week ahead for the local market will be dominated by the step up of Australian June 30 reporting companies releasing the annual results.
Read MoreWhat Our TV Networks Are Not Doing To Survive
It’s a truism for all the consultants and other experts from media studies who know all there is to know about that the future for TV and the digital world that ‘content is king‘. It is also a truism that free to air TV is dying and will be killed by the internet and the likes of Google and Apple, Netflix and their fleet of apps and gizmos.
Read More
