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.
Resources lift local market
The energy sector powered the Australian sharemarket on Thursday, with a 2.8 per cent gain on the back of the apparent sabotage of the Nord Stream sub-sea pipelines linking Europe and Russia. This helped the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index to gain 93 points, or 1.4 per cent to 6,555, while the broader All Ordinaries advanced 100.8 points, or 1.5 per cent, to 6,760.6.
174 stocks in the S&P ASX 200 rose on Thursday, with just 19 falling, and seven closing unchanged.
Energy leaders included Woodside, which gained 94 cents, or 3.1 per cent, to $31.69 and Santos added 16 cents, or 2.3 per cent, to $7.02; while in the coal cohort, Whitehaven Coal rose 40 cents, or 4.6 per cent to $9.18; New Hope Corporation surged 38 cents, or 6.4 per cent, to $6.28; Coronado Global Resources jumped 13 cents, or 8.1 per cent, to $1.74; TerraCom was up 6 cents, or 6.1 per cent, to $1.05; Bowen Coking Coal added 2 cents, or 5.8 per cent, to 36 cents; and Stanmore Resources gained 10 cents, or 4.9 per cent, to $2.14.
In the lithium space, producer Pilbara Minerals added 7 cents, or 1.5 per cent, to $4.62; fellow producer Allkem was up 17 cents, or 1.2 per cent, to $14.09; and Mineral Resources, which mines iron ore as well as lithium, gained $2.17, or 3.4 per cent, to $65.63. Rare earths producer Lynas Corporation was up 33 cents, or 4.5 per cent, to $7.66.
Among the bulk miners, BHP gained 92 cents, or 2.5 per cent, to $38.17; Rio Tinto added 91 cents, or 1 per cent, to $90.91; and iron ore heavyweight Fortescue rose 32 cents, or 1.9 per cent, to $16.78.
Gold miners enjoyed a good day, with Evolution Mining up 9.5 cents, or 5.3 per cent, to $1.98; Northern Star closing 32 cents, or 4.5 per cent, higher at $7.49; Gold Road Resources up 5.5 cents, or 4.7 per cent, to $1.24; and Ramelius Resources, up 3.5 cents, or 5.4 per cent, to 68 cents, making a 13.3 per cent rise in two days.
Outside resources, all the big banks gained ground, with ANZ up 32 cents, or 1.4 per cent to $23.37; NAB adding 28 cents, or 1 per cent, to $29.27; Westpac advancing 19 cents, or 0.9 per cent, to $21.12; and CBA rising 58 cents, or 0.6 per cent, to $93.12. Investment Bank Macquarie was up $1.47, or 0.9 per cent, to $159.51.
Telstra lifted 6 cents, or 1.6 per cent, to $3.88; Wesfarmers gained 87 cents, or 2 per cent, to $44.02, but supermarket giant Woolworths was down 16 cents, or 0.5 per cent, to $34.30; while rival Coles advanced 5 cents to $16.66. Packaging heavyweight Amcor put on 22 cents, or 1.3 per cent, to $16.80.
A-plus for Premier, but a fail for IRESS
A highlight was Solomon Lew’s Premier Investments, which reported FY22 results, posting record sales of just under $1.5 billion, up 5.2 per cent, for the year to July 30. The sales result was largely ahead of expectations, and sent the share price surging $3.02, or 14.6 per cent, higher to $23.69.
Premier – which owns Peter Alexander, Smiggle, Dotti, Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Portmans and Jacqui E – paid a final ordinary dividend of 54 cents, and a fully franked special dividend of 25 cents, taking total fully franked dividends for the full year to $1.25 a share, up 56 per cent on last year. The company also announced a $50 million share buyback, and said that sales for the first seven weeks of the new year were up 47 per cent – although this is compared to a year ago, when stores were closed due to COVID-19.
On the flipside, financial services technology group IRESS turned in a shocker, lodging revised profit guidance due to “macro conditions” and a weak A$. The market was not impressed, stripping $1.82, or 17.3 per cent, from the share price, to $8.70.
US market in a world of hurt
US markets slid overnight, with the broad S&P 500 index closing at a new 2022 low. The fall was led by Apple, which dropped almost 5 per cent after being downgraded by a major investment bank. All the major US indices are now well and truly in bear-market territory. The S&P 500 lost 78.6 points, or 2.1 per cent, to 3,640.6, and is now down by 24.1 per cent for 2022. The 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 458.1 points, or 1.5 per cent, to 29,225.6, stretching its loss for the year to date to 20.1 per cent; while the 314.1-point (2.8 per cent) fall in the Nasdaq Composite index, to 10,737.5 points, leaves the technology barometer staring at a 32.2 per cent slide so far in 2022.
With only one trading day left in the third quarter, the S&P 500 is on track to post a third consecutive losing quarter for the first time since the first quarter of 2009, in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis.
The 10-year US Treasury bond yield rebounded to 3.78 per cent, after briefly pushing through 4 per cent in Wednesday’s trading. The three-year yield was unchanged at 4.21 per cent. A stronger-than-expected jobless claims report had investors betting that the Federal Reserve will keep lifting rates to fight inflation rather than give in to worries that this could hurt the labour market.
In London, the FTSE-100 lost 1.8 per cent and government bond yields rose again as investors continued to fret about the implications of last week’s mini-budget, and the Bank of England’s bond market intervention. But the pound held up reasonably well through the night, to be up 1.5 per cent against the greenback at U$1.105, and 1 per cent firmer against the euro at just under €1.13.
In Frankfurt, Porsche had a successful IPO, after parent Volkswagen issued 911 million shares – see what it did there? Germany’s biggest IPO for 25 years saw the shares come on to the market at €82.5, at the top of the indicative range of €76.50-€82.50. The shares traded as high as €86.78 but closed their first day back at €82.50. The IPO raised €19.5 billion.
Gold is up US$7.11, or 0.4 per cent, to US$1,663.62 an ounce, while Brent crude oil is down 83 cents, or 0.9 per cent, at US$88.49 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate is 44 cents, or 0.5 per cent, higher at $US81.67 a barrel. The Australian dollar is stronger: it’s buying 65.05 US cents, compared to 64.59 US cents at the local close on Wednesday.
