Daily FNArena News - Australia

With clients reducing their maintenance work brokers are now questioning the outlook for painting contractor Programmed Maintenance.

While trading conditions for the Macquarie Group appear worse than assumed, brokers are looking to longer term apparent value to rate Australia’s only investment bank.

Increased competition is making attracting subscribers more difficult for Pay-TV group Austar, so brokers are trimming expectations for the stock.

Stockbrokers like the long-term potential for Riversdale Mining, but disappointments could pop-up in the medium-term.

Whitehaven continues to make progress at its Narrabri longwall operation

Australia’s lottery market is worth $3.6bn a year but only 4% of punters play online. Manaccom is well established to take advantage of inevitable growth.

A snapshot of economist responses to today’s CPI release.

Mesoblast has been recording good Phase II trials results in bone marrow transplantation and Southern Cross Equities suggests this could make it a target of Big Pharma.

Following recent exploration disappointment, Woodside’s plan for a second LNG train at Pluto is running out of time. Browse and Sunrise are further away still. Can Woodside deliver on its potential?

June quarter retail sales numbers for Wesfarmers were solid, the key Coles business delivering a good result and offering evidence the turnaround in the business is continuing.