Christmas has come early for the bank’s shareholders with the decision to slightly increase the 2024 dividend – despite a single-digit decline in the net profit and cash earnings.
Beating the market benchmark is never easy, with 72 per cent of Australian actively managed global equity general funds trailing the S&P World Index in the six months to June 30, 2024. Domestic equity funds performed slightly better, albeit against a significantly lower bar set by the S&P/ASX 200 Index.
ASX200 0.4% higher, quiet day of news
ASX200 0.4% higher, quiet day of news, Fortescue (ASX:FMG), Zip Co (ASX:Z1P) among the strongest
The ASX200 (ASX:XJO) finished 0.4% higher on very light volume with most participants clearly opting for a long weekend.
The consumer and IT sectors continued to outperform behind the likes of Zip Co (ASX:Z1P) and Kogan (ASX:KGN), which finished 2.6% and 3.8% higher respectively.
Despite the approval of the Pfizer vaccine in Australia, both Flight Centre (ASX:FLT) and Webjet (ASX:WEB) fell over 3% after the Australia-New Zealand travel bubble was put on hold after another local transmission of the South African COVID-19 variant.
Fortescue (ASX:FMG) continued its strong run, adding 4.0% ahead of its trading update on Thursday and following Andrew Forrest’s well-publicised speech last week.
Up and coming sports gambling operator PointsBet Holdings (ASX:PBH) jumped 0.6% after announcing the well-known Shaquille O’Neal as the next Brand Ambassador for Australia, the company continuing to seek world domination.
Youfoodz (ASX:YFZ) recovering lost ground, Tyro Payments (ASX:TYR) up
After falling 33% from its listing price, meal kit producer Youfoodz (ASX:YFZ) reaffirmed prospectus guidance, highlighting how much they were benefitting from the stay at home trend.
Revenue for the final quarter of 2020 increased 25.4% to $36.7 million with second-half revenue up 15.6% to $73.6 million in total. The update was solid enough to send the share price 16.1% higher.
Tyro Payments (ASX:TYR) appears to have overcome its well-publicised outages, with January sales to date up 10% to $1.41 billion compared to 2020 levels, which follows a 19% increase in December; shares fell 1.2%.
Tech stocks gain ahead of earnings, lockdowns, vaccine rollout risks to recovery
US markets rallied despite expectations that fiscal stimulus may now be pushed back until mid-March, the Nasdaq adding 0.7% and the S&P500 0.4%.
Investors are clearly positioning ahead of quarterly earnings results from the likes of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) representing 65% of the S&P500’s market capitalisation, which are due on Thursday and Friday Australian time.
European markets fell with the French Government once again considering nationwide lockdowns, highlighting the difficulty and reliance that now stands on vaccines being rolled out appropriately.
An insight into ‘modern day’ trading comes in the form of GameStop (NYSE:GME), a video game retailer who’s share price doubled before finishing just 18% higher in a single session. It has become a hunting ground for both short sellers and speculative day traders.
