The Australian share market quickly entered selling territory today on the back of weaker than expected company results, coupled with the fact that CBA went ex-dividend, paying $2.00 per share.
Despite that, we did have positive leads to follow from Wall Street. But most of our sectors are trading lower with consumer discretionary and financials dragging the chain. Domino’s Pizza Enterprises
(ASX:DMP) sliced itself a worst performing seat dropping over 8 per cent after it downgraded its same store sales guidance for Australia and New Zealand for this full financial year, dropping its forecast for growth to 6-8 per cent, down from its initial guidance of 7-9 per cent growth on last financial year. However, it did report an 6 per cent lift in its net profit after tax for the six months ending December to $63 million.
After going ex-dividend CBA
(ASX:CBA) lost almost 3 per cent.
Going the other way and trading higher are CSL
(ASX:CSL) and Computershare
(ASX:CPU) on the back of a lift in their finanical results
The S&P/ASX 200 index is 11 points down or 0.2 per cent at 5,845. On the futures market the SPI is 3 points higher.
More company news Office real estate group Dexus
(ASX:DXS) saw a 40 per cent rise in its net profit after tax in the six months to December’s close to $997 million. It also saw an uptick in funds from operations and upgraded its full year distribution per security guidance for the full year. Shares in Dexus
(ASX:DXS) are trading 1.9 per cent lower.
Insurance Australia Group
(ASX:IAG) reported its net profit attributable to shareholders lifted about 24 per cent in the six months to December’s end to $551 million, while its revenue rose over 1 per cent compared to the same time last year to $8.3 billion. It also declared a fully franked interim dividend of 14 cents per share. And shares in Insurance Australia Group
(ASX:IAG) are holding one of the top performing posts today, trading 3 per cent higher at $7.49.
Best and worst performersThe best performing sector is healthcare adding 3.2 per cent to 25,444 points while the worst performing sector is discretionary, shedding 1 per cent to 2,236 points.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is CSL
(ASX:CSL), rising 5.5 per cent to $149.82, followed by shares in Computershare
(ASX:CPU) and Myer
(ASX:MYR).
The worst performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Fletcher Building
(ASX:FBU), dropping 11.1 per cent to $6.36, followed by shares in Domino’s Pizza Enterprises
(ASX:DMP) and Fairfax
(ASX:FXJ).
Gold and the dollar Gold is trading at $US1,333 an ounce.
One Australian dollar is buying 78.65 US cents.
CryptocurrenciesThe three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading lower: Bitcoin has fallen 3 per cent to $8,659, Tether has fallen about 0.5 per cent to $0.99 and Ethereum has fallen about 2 per cent to $848
