Australia | May 15 2013
By Stephen Hogan, Senior Private Client Adviser, Equities/Derivatives
Australian Market
The Australian market (XJO) closed down -29.3 points or 0.56% to 5191.7 today. Our market opened quite strong this morning with a hard push higher of about 27 points to 5249.5, a new high, at 10:16am before a large sell off down to 5168.5. The market fought back in the afternoon to limit the downside from over -50 points to -29.3. Overnight the Dow Jones added 123.57 points or 0.82% to continue the record highs.
CSR ((CSR)) has recorded a full-year net loss of $146.9 million, including the write-down of its Viridian glass business. CSR's trading revenue for the year to March fell 7% to $1.68 billion. CSR will pay an unfranked dividend of 2.1 cents per share
Optus ((SGT)), has seen its profit down 3.6 per cent in the last quarter on the back of declining mobile income. Revenue in last the quarter ending March 2013 of $2.17 billion was down 5.4% from to $2.29 billion in the same period the previous year. The poor performance of Optus also dragged down the revenue of SingTel, its parent company by as much as 6.3%. Optus added 33,000 new customers in the past three months.
CBA ((CBA)) announced another record full-year profit after reporting quarterly cash earnings of $1.9 billion, maintaining the strong run of profit results for the major banks. This brings the bank's profits to $5.7 billion so far this financial year, and on track to beat last year's full-year cash profit of $7.1 billion.
UGL's ((UGL)) share price dropped significantly today after the engineering and mining contractor slashed its full-year profit guidance, blaming the slowdown in mining investment and poor project performance for its second downgrade this year. Shares in UGL topped the bottom performers list for today, falling -16.61%. UGL said it now expects to report net profit of between $90 million and $100 million, compared to its previously revised guidance of between $150 million and $160 million given at its half-year results in February.
AUD is currently trading at $0.9886, down -$0.0002 against the USD. The Australian dollar has been driven down by a larger-than-expected budget deficit and a further surge in the US currency, continuing weeks of volatility.
Top Performers
Energy World Corporation Limited ((EWC)) up $0.095 or 31.67% to $0.395
Flexigroup Limited ((FXL)) up $0.25 or 5.68% to $4.65
Sigma Pharmaceuticals Limited ((SIP)) up $0.32 or 4.00% to $0.832
Carsales.com Limited ((CRZ)) up $0.32 or 3.19% to $10.36
Platinum Asset Management Limited ((PTM)) up $0.16 or 3.12% to $5.29
Bottom Performers
UGL Limited ((UGL)) down -$1.59 or -16.61% to $7.98
Mirabela Nickel Limited ((MBN)) down -$0.023 or -13.53% to $0.147
Emeco Holdings Limited ((EHL)) down -$0.045 or -9.09% to $0.45
Transfield Services Limited ((TSE)) down -$0.128 or -8.39% to $1.397
ALS Limited ((ALQ)) down -$0.77 or -7.86% to $9.03
Our Comments
The market took a pretty negative turn today with most declines coming from the mining and mining services space. It was especially disappointing considering the good lead from overseas this morning. I really think the market responded to the lack of help business got in last night's budget as well as continued negativity towards miners. Will be interesting to see how the market no responds to being on the other side of 5200.
Everything is pointing to a continued rally in share market now so it may do the opposite and trade in a range here for a while.
(For a more comprehensive summary of last night’s market action see FNArena’s Overnight Report.)
Re-published with permission. Views expressed are not by association FNArena's (see our disclaimer).
Stephen Hogan is an Authorised Representative of Novus Capital. Authorised Representative No.345411 – http://www.stephenhogan.com.au
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