The Australian share market shaved away most of yesterday’s gains on the back of a suite of sour company reports.
We had negative leads from the open, after the tech heavy Nasdaq lost over 1 per cent and Macy’s fell on the back of its disappointing sales.
Locally, we saw Invocare
(ASX:IVC) fall 9.6 on the back of their results, Origin Energy
(ASX:ORG) lose 6.7 on the back of their reporting and Mineral Resources
(ASX:MIN) lose
over 6 on back of their results as well.
No helping the cause the iron ore price fell 1.2 per cent to US$67.21 and its futures are pointing to a fall of 2.9 per cent.
Meantime, Energy and materials (miners) are leading just a handful of sectors lower at noon, while Telcos are up 4 per cent after Telstra
(ASX:TLS) gained
6 per cent on their results.
And in broker upgrades this morning we saw property group, Centuria Capital
(ASX:CNI) upgraded to a buy by Shaw and Partners.
The S&P/ASX 200 index is 17 points or 0.3 per cent lower at 6,312. On the futures market the SPI is 23 points lower.
Economic newsLow average wage growth has continued according to new statistics from the ABS today, with wages rising by 1 per cent over the last six months and 2.7 per cent over the last year, with the average weekly ordinary time earnings (AWOTE) for full-time in May being $1,585.30.
While we also learned that Australia’s unemployment rate fell to 5.3 per cent in July (according to the ABS), beating forecasts with some economists predicting the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate would rise to 5.5 per cent.
Meantime, the number of people employed (on a seasonally adjusted basis) fell by about 4,000 in July missing the consensus estimates that the number of employed people would rise by 15,000.
Company news Intellectual Property firm, IPH
(ASX:IPH) announced its statutory net profit after tax fell [5 per cent] in the 2018 financial year to $41 million, compared to the same time last year’s $43 million. However, in good for the firm its revenue clocked up 21 on the back of a strong second half of the year in Asia. It also declared a final dividend of 11 cents per share, a rise of 5 per cent on FY17. Shares in Intellectual Property firm, IPH
(ASX:IPH) are trading 3.4 per cent higher at $5.34.
$2 billion real estate investment trust, Charter Hall Retail REIT
(ASX:CQR) reported a slip in its net profit after tax for the 30 June 2018 financial year to $146.4 million, on the back of expanding the REIT and bumping up its acquisitions in NSW and QLD. As a result of the acquisitions, it increased its revenue to $227 million, a rise of over $11 million on the same time last year. And if you look at its chart, it’s higher over the week and today it’s made its biggest one-day gain since June, after it rose 1.5 per cent at $4.28.
Best and worst performersThe best performing sector is S&P/ASX Telco Services adding 3.9 per cent, while the worst performing sector is Energy, shedding 2.02 per cent.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Domino's Pizza Enterprises Limited
(ASX:DMP), rising 7.41 per cent to $55.84, followed by shares in Breville Group Limited
(ASX:BRG) and Qbe Insurance Group Limited
(ASX:QBE).
The worst performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Invocare Limited
(ASX:IVC), dropping 9.6 per cent to $13.02, followed by shares in Origin Energy Limited
(ASX:ORG) and Mineral Resources Limited
(ASX:MIN).
Asian marketsJapan’s Nikkei has lost 0.5 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has lost 0.6 per cent and the Shanghai Composite has lost 0.7 per cent.
Commodities and the dollar Gold is trading at $US1,170 an ounce.
One Australian dollar is buying 72.63 US cents.
CryptocurrenciesSome of the most traded cryptocurrencies are trading mixed: Bitcoin has added 0.6 per cent to US$6,293, Ethereum has lost about 1 per cent to US$282 and EOS is about 3 per cent lower to US$4.63.
