Icarus Signal New Entries For Today: ANZ Bank

Daily update on share prices and consensus price targets.

By Rudi Filapek-Vandyck

There is a new leader in the Australian banking sector and its name is… ANZ Bank ((ANZ)). This month's surge in the share price for banking stocks, on the back of dividend payouts, reducing funding pressures and rising bond yields, has now pushed ANZ Bank's share price above consensus price target, indicating market sentiment is genuinely strong towards the end of the March quarter.

The usual leader for the sector, CommBank ((CBA)), has equally outperformed the big resources companies since early January, but CommBank's performance has nevertheless lagged ANZ and Westpac in 2012. This now leads to the situation that ANZ Bank is the first amongst Australia's banks to surge above consensus target. Traditionally it has been CBA's privilege to play the leading role.

Does this mean bad news is afoot? Not if history is our guide. CBA shares are still circa 2% below target, Westpac still has a gap of 4.6% to close and for National Australia Bank the target is still more than 7% above today's share price. This would indicate there's still some room to move for banking equities before alarm bells start ringing about too complacent investors pushing share prices too high. (As a rule of thumb I would ignore the laggard, NAB, but keep a close eye on CBA and WBC from here onwards).

For now it's probably sufficient to note that CBA, the relative most expensive one in the sector, is no longer in the lead if this year's price action is any indication.

Meanwhile, note how much trouble former market darling Cochlear ((COH)) is encountering when trying to do what once upon a time went so easily; trading above consensus target. Cochlear is now part of a group of 27 companies that is trading close but still below target. This group also includes CBA, Amcom ((AMM)), Imdex ((IMD)), OrotonGroup ((ORL)) and newcomers Carsales.com ((CRZ)), QR National ((QRN)), Sedgman ((SDM)) and Cabcharge ((CAB)).

There are currently 64 companies trading above target, including the new leader amongst the banks, as well as Macquarie Group ((MQG)), BT Investment ((BTT)) and Graincorp ((GNC)). At the very bottom of the market, Kagara ((KZL)) has now joined the likes of PaperlinX ((PPX)), Hastie Group ((HST)) and Carnarvon Petroleum ((CVN)) in the Bottom 50 of stocks that trade at the largest discount to their price targets.

Investors should consider the information and data are provided for research purposes only.

Stocks <3% Below Consensus

Order Symbol Current Price($) Consensus Target($) Difference(%) 1 CAB $ 5.88 $ 6.00 2.04% 2 COH $ 59.46 $ 59.81 0.58% 3 CRZ $ 5.46 $ 5.49 0.59% 4 QRN $ 3.67 $ 3.72 1.50% 5 SDM $ 2.38 $ 2.45 2.94%

Stocks Above Consensus

Order Symbol Current Price($) Consensus Target($) Difference(%) 1 ANZ $ 23.18 $ 23.11 – 0.30% 2 BTT $ 2.18 $ 2.17 – 0.46% 3 DWS $ 1.45 $ 1.44 – 0.35% 4 GNC $ 8.80 $ 8.69 – 1.23% 5 MQG $ 29.61 $ 29.52 – 0.29% 6 MTS $ 4.22 $ 4.20 – 0.47% 7 PMV $ 5.67 $ 5.63 – 0.79% 8 PRG $ 2.50 $ 2.48 – 0.92% 9 SEK $ 7.00 $ 6.97 – 0.36% 10 SMX $ 5.85 $ 5.83 – 0.41% 11 TOX $ 2.85 $ 2.82 – 0.95%

Top 50 Stocks Furthest from Consensus

Order Symbol Current Price($) Consensus Target($) Difference(%) 1 ACL $ 0.47 $ 0.89 91.40% 2 AJA $ 2.41 $ 3.82 58.30% 3 AMX $ 1.10 $ 2.08 89.36% 4 AOH $ 0.31 $ 0.65 113.11% 5 BDR $ 0.66 $ 1.15 74.24% 6 BND $ 0.79 $ 1.30 64.56% 7 BOL $ 0.28 $ 0.50 81.82% 8 BSL $ 0.39 $ 0.62 59.23% 9 BTA $ 0.86 $ 1.79 108.14% 10 COK $ 0.38 $ 0.65 71.05% 11 CVN $ 0.14 $ 0.35 150.00% 12 DTE $ 0.29 $ 0.70 141.38% 13 EVR $ 2.28 $ 3.50 53.51% 14 FND $ 0.40 $ 0.67 67.50% 15 GBG $ 0.63 $ 0.96 51.90% 16 GRY $ 1.11 $ 1.96 77.38% 17 GUF $ 0.70 $ 1.40 100.00% 18 HGO $ 0.26 $ 0.41 60.78% 19 HST $ 0.29 $ 1.13 296.49% 20 IAU $ 0.83 $ 1.52 83.88% 21 IFN $ 0.25 $ 0.54 117.60% 22 IPD $ 0.51 $ 1.14 123.53% 23 JET $ 0.53 $ 0.89 69.52% 24 KGD $ 0.98 $ 2.20 124.49% 25 KGL $ 1.32 $ 2.34 77.27% 26 KZL $ 0.14 $ 0.21 50.00% 27 LNC $ 1.25 $ 2.05 64.66% 28 LYC $ 1.09 $ 1.99 82.95% 29 MBN $ 0.74 $ 1.52 104.86% 30 MML $ 5.10 $ 7.79 52.75% 31 MPO $ 0.66 $ 1.08 62.88% 32 NCR $ 0.34 $ 0.65 94.03% 33 OTH $ 0.68 $ 1.10 61.76% 34 PAN $ 1.20 $ 2.14 78.83% 35 PEM $ 0.44 $ 0.77 77.01% 36 PPC $ 0.80 $ 1.33 66.00% 37 PPX $ 0.10 $ 0.34 244.90% 38 QRX $ 1.62 $ 2.77 71.17% 39 RES $ 0.47 $ 0.75 59.57% 40 RFX $ 0.68 $ 1.62 138.24% 41 SAR $ 0.59 $ 0.92 57.26% 42 SLX $ 3.63 $ 5.54 52.62% 43 SMR $ 0.80 $ 1.45 82.39% 44 SYM $ 0.12 $ 0.24 108.70% 45 TIS $ 0.42 $ 0.82 95.24% 46 TSM $ 0.35 $ 0.72 104.29% 47 TXN $ 0.64 $ 1.04 62.50% 48 VMS $ 0.39 $ 0.61 58.44% 49 WTP $ 1.06 $ 1.63 54.50% 50 YTC $ 0.45 $ 0.73 62.22%

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