Healthscope injects life into ASX: Aus shares 0.8% lower at noon

Market Reports

by Jessica Amir

The Australian share market has continued to trade lower for the second day this week with most sector trading lower at noon with Energy leading the drag, down over 2 per cent with Utilities, Healthcare, Financials losing 1 per cent each.

From the outset though, we had negative leads to follow from Wall Street, after the Dow and the S&P500 lost 0.5 per cent and 0.4 per cent each.

However, local gains are being made in just the Consumer Discretionary and tech sectors, of about a third of a per cent.

Meantime, Australia's second largest private hospital operator, Healthscope (ASX:HSO) rally up about 21 per cent to $2.15 after receiving a second takeover offer for $4.1 billion, for $2.36 cash per share. The BGH - AustralianSuper Consortium are trying again to take over the firm, despite Healthscope previously rejecting the first offer on 22 May 2018.

Broker moves

WorleyParson (ASX:WOR) had their buy rating reiterated by Citi given the US$3.3 billion acquisition of technical services provider, Jacobs ECR diversifies its business and geographical exposure. With a price target of $20.70. Meantime it last traded at $17.84

The S&P/ASX 200 index

45 points or 0.77 per cent lower at 5,860 at noon. On the futures market the SPI is 46 points lower.

Company news

Domino's Pizza Enterprises (ASX:DMP) has advised it has settled its legal dispute with Precision Tracking in relation to its GPS Driver Tracker technology after both parties dropped their claims. Domino's will continue to use the technology and says the settlement terms, (which are confidential) will not impact its FY19’s forecast earnings. Shares in Domino’s Pizza (ASX:DMP) are trading 2.33 per cent higher to $56.56 at noon.

Gold producer Resolute Mining (ASX:RSG) is seeing the most selling among the top 200 stocks today, despite the company maintaining its FY19 production guidance of 300,000 ounces, while it's reaffirming its all-in-sustaining costs. It will kick off sub-level production in December 2018 and implement full automation, as it ramps up to steady state production in June 2019. The company says is ‘a new era’ for its Syama underground mine, and it will be the world’s first customised fully automated underground mine. Shares in Resolute Mining (ASX:RSG) are trading 7.14 per cent lower to $1.07 at noon.

IPOs

Metallurgical coal producer, Coronado Global Resources Inc. (ASX:CRN) started trading today. It floated with an issue price of $4.40, opened at $3.80 and its trading at $3.76.

Best and worst performers

The best performing sector is S&P/ASX Consumer Discretionary adding 0.4 per cent, while the worst performing sector is S&P/ASX Energy, shedding 2.3 per cent.

The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Healthscope Limited (ASX:HSO), rising 20.45 per cent to $2.15 followed by shares in Flight Centre (ASX:FLT) and Bellamy's Australia Limited (ASX:BAL).

The worst performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Resolute Mining (ASX:RSG), dropping 7.14 per cent to $1.07, followed by shares in Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (ASX:API) and Seven West Media Limited (ASX:SWM).

Commodities and the dollar

Gold is trading at US$1,223 an ounce.
Iron ore price rose 0.7 per cent to US$73.80 and its futures are pointing to a rise of 0.67 per cent.
One Australian dollar is buying 70.66 US cents.

Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin has fallen 0.16 per cent to US$6476, Ethereum fallen 0.4 per cent to US$204 and EOS has fallen about 0.14 per cent to US$5.40



 

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