This was published 4 years ago
That’s all folks. Alex Druce and Colin Kruger will be back tomorrow morning with all the latest market action.
Thanks for all your time and comments.
Good night.
Get our wrap of the day on the markets, breaking business news and expert opinion delivered to your inbox each afternoon. Sign up for The Sydney Morning Herald‘s here and The Age’s here.
The Australian sharemarket closed at its lowest in nearly two weeks as ex-dividend mining titan BHP led losses, continuing the soft start to September for local equities.
BHP - the biggest company on the index - fell $3.09, or 6.9 per cent on Thursday, to close at a nine-month low $41.94 as iron ore prices weakened and it went without the right to its recently announced payout of $US2 ($2.70) a share.
Together with biotech CSL - which was also trading ex-dividend - the iron giant accounted for the bulk of the 0.6 per cent decline for the S&P/ASX 200.
The local index managed to trim losses in another afternoon recovery, having shed 1.2 per cent or $28 billion in early trade, and ultimately finished at 7485.7 for the session.
The Australian sharemarket closed at its lowest in nearly two weeks as ex-dividend mining titan BHP led losses and a swag of blue-chip names lost ground.
BHP - the biggest company on the local index - fell 6.9 per cent on Thursday to close at a nine-month low of $41.94 amid weaker iron ore prices and minus its recently announced payout.
Together with biotech CSL - which was also trading ex-dividend - it accounted for the bulk of the 0.6 per cent decline for the S&P/ASX 200.
The local index managed to close at 7485.7 after another afternoon recovery, having shed 1.2 per cent or $28 billion in early trade.
Australian technology stocks took a lead from their Wall Street counterparts to add a bit of lustre throughout the day, while Macquarie Group also nudged a new record high.
Nuix officially knows about the ASIC investigation into its float and subsequent market announcements.
“Nuix can confirm that it has today received notices from ASIC seeking documents potentially relevant to those matters. Nuix will of course co-operate fully with ASIC’s investigation,” it says in a statement to ASX today.
Those matters involving the e-forensics group stretch back to its financial accounts from the period ending 30 June 2018, 30 June 2019 and 30 June 2020, to Nuix’s prospectus dated 18 November 2020 and Nuix’s market disclosure in the period between the period 4 December 2020 to 31 May 2021.
Nuix was sold to investors last year on large earnings multiples with the promise of high growth, but barely matched the previous year’s revenue as it reported a loss for the year ending June 30.
Asian stocks rose Thursday as investors waited for US jobs data that might influence when the Federal Reserve starts to wind down its stimulus.
Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong, which are the bulk of Asian market capitalisation, advanced.
South Korea declined, while the ASX 200 was 0.7 per cent lower at 7472.6.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index added 0.1 per cent on Wednesday, pushed up by gains for tech and communications stocks.
The Australian economy grew in the June quarter easing fears of a double dip recession as household and government spending helped boost the GDP.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday showed the economy expanding by 0.7 per cent through the June quarter, taking annual growth to an all-time high of 9.6 per cent.
The stronger than expected results came on the back of state government spending on hospitals, railways and roads, federal government vaccine stockpiling and households continuing their COVID-era cash splash on things like renovations.
But the figures pre-date the majority of the lockdowns the country has been experiencing this winter, leading economists to warn the September quarter results aren’t likely to be as strong.
ANZ head of economics David Plank says the Reserve Bank should push back its tapering schedule at next week’s board meeting, as the Delta spread and lockdowns continue to cloud the 2022 economic outlook.
Last month the RBA reiterated plans to ease back its bond purchasing program at the tail end of 2021, something ANZ was ‘surprised’ by given that stricter measures were being put in place to halt the march of the pandemic.
Mr Plank said the central bank would most likely opt to delay tapering on Tuesday given the downside risks to the 2022 outlook have only increased - both domestically and internationally.
“At the very least Australia’s starting point for 2022 will be weaker, implying that wages growth and inflation are lower than previously expected,” Mr Plank said in a note this morning.
Bill Gross is talking trash about the bond market - literally.
In a meandering and sometimes off-kilter investment outlook posted on his website, the onetime bond king said longer-term Treasury yields are so low that the funds that buy them belong in the “investment garbage can”.
Ten-year yields are likely to climb to 2 per cent over the next 12 months, from about 1.3 per cent currently, handing investors a loss of roughly 3 per cent, he wrote. Stocks could also fall into the category of “trash” should earnings growth fall short of lofty expectations.
“Cash has been trash for a long time, but there are now new contenders,” said Gross, who co-founded Pacific Investment Management Co., or PIMCO, in the 1970s and retired in 2019. “Intermediate to long-term bond funds are in that trash receptacle for sure, but will stocks follow? Earnings growth had better be double-digit-plus or else they could join the garbage truck.”
With no fewer than three major App Store policy changes announced in the past week, Apple is reshaping its immensely profitable services business to be more resistant to discontent and regulation, even as it draws developers and content businesses further into its ecosystem.
The iPhone-maker has been hit left and right with controversies and lawsuits surrounding its App Store over the past few years, with most hinging on the idea that it’s anti-competitive by design; developers say they’re forced to used Apple’s payment mechanisms at a high commission, and face strict rules about how they can make money.
Since being on Apple devices is more or less required to reach a wide audience, everyone from Spotify, Microsoft and Fortnite-maker Epic Games, right through to small independent developers, have argued that Apple gets away with policies that would never be tolerated in a free market.
But with decisions in Epic’s major lawsuits still pending, and App Store regulation being considered in many jurisdictions around the world including Australia, and actual laws being introduced in South Korea to oblige big tech to open up, Apple has made a string of behind-the-scenes changes that could get some of its vocal critics onside.
It won’t come as a shock to anyone who watches the sharemarket but the value of our resource exports hit a record high of $88 billion for the June quarter with iron ore driving the 6.8 per cent lift in the value of exports quarter-on-quarter.
And keep in mind that production volumes declined 5.4 per cent which gives an idea of just how strong prices were.
It led to Australia’s terms of trade boom to the highest level on record according to ABS figures.
Rural exports of soft commodities also helped offset the collapse of export services like education.
But it doesn’t hold a candle to our miners as Fortescue showed this week delivering a record-breaking full-year profit of $14 billion on the back of a stunning rally in iron ore prices, and announced it would double its dividends and deliver $4 billion to founder Andrew Forrest alone.