The Australian share market has reversed its last two days of gains on the back Trump’s comments about putting tariffs on every Chinese good going into the US, while we have also seen the Australian drought affect the market as well, with Nufarm falling 7.67 per cent lower.
On the sector front, property and utilities leading most of the sectors lower at noon, while just energy trades with a profit.
As for stellar stand outs, Afterpay Touch
(ASX:APT) claims the top performing post and at noon it’s 6.33 per cent higher at $15.29. Year-on-year it’s up 407 per cent. It comes after the buy now pay later company, announced its total sales soared about 290 per cent on FY17 to $2.2 billion (last week).
The S&P/ASX 200 index is 0.9 per cent or 57 points lower at 6,229. On the futures market the SPI is 57 points lower.
Company news Shares in Agricultural chemical company, Nufarm
(ASX:NUF) stumbled lower today after it advised been significantly hit with dry weather and it considerable lowered its FY18 underlying EBIT to be between $255 and $270 million. It comes as its Australian and NZ (ANZ) business EBIT contribution to the business is tipped to plummet from last year’s $52 million, to just $5 to $10 million. It also expects working capital to be up to $300 million higher than last year, on the back of the difficult season. The $3 billion company says it’s experienced one of the driest autumns since records began over 100 years ago. And that’s led to ‘an extremely poor winter crop season’ coupled with the fact the Aussie crop protection market is substantially lower. It also advised that the weak result for FY18 for ANZ will flow onto FY19. Shares in
(ASX:NUF) are trading 7.67 per cent lower at $7.77
Nickel sulphide explorer and producer, Western Areas
(ASX:WSA) has reported its strongest quarter of cashflow generation for the year, its highest quarter of mine production, while it also hit all of its FY18 metric targets (‘guidance metrics’). It’s cash at bank rose from $16 million to $152 million. Its shares having been climbing and year-on-year it’s trading 41 per cent higher. At noon, shares in Western Areas
(ASX:WSA) are trading 2.7 per cent lower at $15.29.
Best and worst performersThe best performing sector is Energy adding 0.5 per cent while the worst performing sector is Real Estate Investment Trusts, shedding 1.1 per cent.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Afterpay Touch Group Limited
(ASX:APT), rising 6.3 per cent to $15.29, followed by shares in Mayne Pharma Group Limited
(ASX:MYX) and Beach Energy Limited
(ASX:BPT).
The worst performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Nufarm Limited
(ASX:NUF), dropping 7.7 per cent to $7.77, followed by shares in IOOF Holdings Limited
(ASX:IFL) and Incitec Pivot Limited
(ASX:IPL).
Asian markets Japan’s Nikkei has lost 1.3 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has added 0.01 per cent and the Shanghai Composite has lost 0.43 per cent.
Commodities and the dollar Gold is trading at $US1,233 an ounce.
Iron ore price futures is pointing to a rise of 1.2 per cent.
One Australian dollar is buying 74.25 US cents.
CryptocurrenciesSome of the most traded cryptocurrencies are trading mixed. Bitcoin has gained 1.1 per cent to US$7,522, Ethereum has fallen about 0.2 per cent to US$464 and Bitcoin Cash has gained about 1.2 per cent to US$803.
