The Week Ahead
The words of the US Federal Reserve and its chairman, Ben Bernanke dominate the week ahead for markets here and offshore.
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Global Markets Jitter As Wall St Leaps Late
Get used to it – the rising volatility we have seen in the past three weeks will continue, especially for much of next week – the US is recovering and that, plus the stuttering attempts to reflate the moribund Japanese economy, are going to rattle confidence levels for investors around the world.
Read MoreBHP To Decide On $US14 Billion Jansen Project
Here’s a heads up for the new financial year.
Read MoreSuncorp Completes Its Rebirth From GFC Black Hole
Brisbane-based financial services group, Suncorp (SUN), is attempting to clean up its balance sheet and get rid it of its ‘non-core’ or bad bank loans – at a cost of close to half a billion dollars in losses to be reported in the 2012-13 full year results in August.
Read MoreSlimming Rio Sells Eagle Project
The great Rio Tinto crash diet continues with reports the company is looking to sell down part of its collection of coal mining assets in NSW to another big miner – Glencore, owners of Xstrata.
Read MoreIs Newcrest About To Turn?
If the stock market act is any guide (and it was last week), then the selling wave that has overwhelmed Newcrest Mining seems to be ending.
Read MoreNews Corp Investors Approve Split
News Corporation is on its way to separating itself into two companies from June 28, with the one centred on Australia to be left behind as the rest of the group grows more rapidly in the growth markets of media content and production.
Read MoreGreenback’s Strength Continues To Clip The Aussie
Another rough day for the Australian dollar with new 32 month lows set in Asian trading yesterday and in European and US trading overnight.
Read MoreNRW Feels The Chill From Mining’s Slowdown
Not surprisingly, Perth-based mining contractor NRW Holdings (NWH) has joined the ever lengthening queue of companies from the sector reporting that its revenue and earnings have taken a hit or two from the slowdown in mining investment.
Read MoreASX Asks For More Than Half A Billion To Boost Capital
ASX Ltd plans to raise up to $550 million in a two for 19 rights issue at $30 a share to in part fund new capital needed for the exchange’s clearing house.
Read MoreChina: Still Building Trade Surpluses As Economy Slows
Yes, the Chinese economy is slowing, no it isn’t a basket case. But growth has definitely slowed from more than 8% at end of 2012 to the range of 7% to 7.5% (down slightly from the first quarter estimate of 7.8%).
Read MoreThe Week Ahead
The events last week at Newcrest Mining will be centre stage today as investors wait for any sign that the market regulator ASIC is going to do more than just talk about the events of last week that saw the company’s shares plunge 21%, including on Friday when the company cut its final dividend, announced more cost cutting and plans to cut its asset values by up to $6 billion.
Read MoreLeighton Off Negative Watch
Limited relief for Leighton Holdings, the German-Spanish controlled construction giant which seems to be re-emerging slowly from the management and operational turmoil of the last two to three years.
Read MoreFairfax Black Hole Deepens
No wonder Fairfax Media says it will get an extra $60 million in cost reductions above the quarter of a billion already promised from the continuing restructure of its print and digital operations. Its revenue is sliding, along with profits.
Read MoreAussie Dollar Winners & Losers
So what’s the bigger story for investors – dollar down to new 32 month lows – or the Australian share market shedding most of this year’s gains and leaving those invested in the market and in the various forms of superannuation looking at a very limp end to 2012-23?
Read MoreMiserable May, Jittery June Slash Market Gains
The fall in the market last month and so far in June, is getting close to wiping out the gains for the current year.
Read MoreFederation Offloads $602 Million, Macmahon Cut From Copper Project
We saw conflicting news from two of the market’s perennial disappointers in recent years – Federation Centres (FDC) (better known as the failed shopping mall group, Centro, but now revamped) and contractor and mining services group, Macmahon Holdings (MAH), 19% controlled by Leighton Holdings.
Read MoreCar Sales Strong
Australian car sales continue to outperform the growth rate in the Australian economy.
Read MoreGrowth Slows, But Still Ticking Over
As forecast yesterday, the Australian economy grew modestly in the March quarter and in the year to March, thanks to strong exports (especially of iron ore) and retail sales (household consumption such as cars) which offset the slowing impact of the mining investment boom and a fall in government investment.
Read MoreRBA Holds Fire
No rate cut from the Reserve Bank yesterday after its surprise cut last month.
Read MoreFalling Iron Ore Prices To Pressure Growth?
If Australia had a solid quarter of growth in the three months to March, then we will be able to thank the sharp improvement in our trade position which is expected to add 1.0 percentage points to growth in the quarter, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday.
Read MoreBillabong Battered
An appalling day if you happened to be a remaining shareholder in Billabong – the shares lost 58% of their already very diminished value after the sale of the company to possible US buyers fell over.
Read MoreSlowing China, Asia, Hit Markets Again
Suddenly the going is getting tougher in our biggest export markets of China, South Korea, India and Taiwan – in fact it seems that apart from rebounding Japan, the rest of Asia is now seeing a slowdown in activity in its most important sector – manufacturing.
Read MoreTranspacific CEO Walks
A somewhat confusing, but busy morning yesterday for waste handling group, Transpacific Industries (TPI) and its management, board and investors.
Read MoreCochlear Dives On Guidance Downgrade
Blood on the share price of Cochlear (COH), the hearing implant company, after a disappointing earnings and sales update yesterday.
Read MoreQuiet China Outperforms Noisy Japan
Amid all the hype and type about quantitative easing, Fed easing/tightening, falling gold, oil, nervous investors and rising bond yield, there was an unlikely winner of the best performed major stock market last month – China.
Read MoreThe Week Ahead
The health of the Australian economy, interest rates, retail sales, trade and growth will be centre stage in the coming week, as will US employment, European interest rates, the health of manufacturing in major economies, while Chinese economic data for May is out next weekend.
Read MoreWeak May Hands Over To June
Nervous May might have become June on Saturday, but that won’t have an impact on the local market opening.
Read MoreMining Boom Over?
The slowdown of the mining and resource investment boom seems to be happening faster than previously thought.
Read MoreOz Minerals Faces Angry AGM
OZ Minerals’ shares look like ending the week above $4, and off the back of a sharp dip under that level during the week, after Tuesday’s AGM. The shares ended at $4.05 yesterday, compared with a $4.06 close last Friday.
Read MoreNikkei’s Mixed May Sets Investors Wondering
Should we start fearing Thursday trading on the Tokyo stock market?
Read MoreAristocrat Lifts Profits, Dividend, Shares Up
We saw a couple of results yesterday that went against the current gloomy trend. Programmed Maintenance Services nudged profit up 3% for the year to March 31 and lifted dividends, and Aristocrat Leisure seems to be getting back on track with higher interim earnings and dividends.
Read MoreProgrammed Defies Mining Services Trend
And although the 3% rise in full year earnings by Programmed Maintenance Services (PRG) was modest, it still was a rise, which is what a lot of its competitors in the services sector will struggle to report for the 2012-13 financial year.
Read MoreBSA To Report Weaker Earnings For 2012-13
And a reasonable update from building and communications service company BSA Limited, despite weak underlying conditions in the markets it operates in.
Read MoreNew Hope’s Coal Output Cut To Cost Millions In Lost Revenues
Soul Pattinson’s resource subsidiary New Hope Corp (NHC) has again cut coal output further at its West Moreton operations in Queensland because of the continuing weakness in the global coal market.
Read MoreSantos Sees Cooper Gas Boost To Fill Looming Gap
Santos (STO) has nailed the silly argument from The Greens and the Australian Industry Group that we face a gas shortage in the Eastern States in coming years because the rising level of exports, especially by the Queensland coal seam gas sector.
Read MoreSuncorp Confident Of Boosting Revenues And Returns In Next Two Years
Brisbane-based Suncorp (SUN) told an investors day briefing that it is now targeting what it calls "top line growth" of 7% to 9% over the next couple of years and wants to boost return on equity to 10% by 2015.
Read MoreGPT Calls Off Australand Deal
Property firm GPT Group has abandoned its bid to buy Australand Property Group’s industrial and investment property portfolio, worth an estimated $A2.8 billion.
Read MoreTechnology One Looking At Solid Year
Brisbane-based tech group Technology One (TNE) has lifted interim dividend by 10% after a 17% improvement in first half earnings, but the shares closed all but steady on the day.
Read MoreDavid Jones Loses Its Way, Again?
Should David Jones’s (DJS) latest third quarter figures, out yesterday, make investors reassess the performance of Myer?
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