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That's it from us at Markets Live today. Thanks for reading along, and keeping us on our toes in the comments section.
Alex Druce and Lucy Battersby will return tomorrow, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
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Enthusiasm for e-commerce market darling Kogan is waning at investment firm Morningstar, with analyst Johannes Faul releasing a bearish note saying the company was “materially overvalued”.
Mr Faul said Kogan’s higher than average price-to-earnings ratio was likely due to investors extrapolating the company’s recent surge in sales too far into the future, pointing out both near and long-term risks which could dent the retailer’s growth potential.
“Near-term, we expect customers to return to physical stores as restrictions ease, and higher unemployment to result in lower household discretionary income and consumer sentiment,” he said.
“Longer-term, we expect Amazon Australia to continue to aggressively take market share, and many omnichannel retailers to become increasingly competitive online.”
The ASX climbed higher again on Monday as the border between New South Wales and Victoria re-opened for the first time in three-and-a-half months.
Hopes for a speedy COVID-19 vaccine roll out also encouraged investors to look to the post-pandemic world, with companies announcing strategic opportunities, and a rush of new listings on the ASX.
The S&P/ASX 200 got as high as 6594 in the morning, then spent the afternoon in a very tight trading range. It closed 0.3 per cent higher at 6561.6 points, a gain of 22.4 points. The index has added more than 10 per cent this month so far, putting it on track for the best monthly performance in 20 years.
The border reopening also saw a resumption of the world’s second-busiest flight route between Melbourne and Sydney, with Sydney Airport stocks rising 1.2 per cent.
The Australian sharemarket continued its strong November on Monday with a 0.3 per cent rise to a new nine-month peak.
The local benchmark softened slightly in the closing minutes to finish at 6561.6. Gains for the big miners, biotech CSL, tech stocks, and the energy sector lifted the index, while losses for Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Wesfarmers and Woolworths kept a lid on the market's rise.
US futures were last up by between 0.3 per cent and 0.4 per cent and pointing to gains on Wall Street tonight.
The $800 million HomeCo Daily Needs REIT made its debut on the ASX today trading just above its offer price of $1.34.
The REIT is a spin-off from the HomeCo retail fund, which itself floated in October 2019 and has a portfolio of 16 assets, anchored by food and large format retailers.
It will be managed by the parent HomeCo and the board will include property stalwarts Simon Tuxen, formerly at Westfield, and Simon Shakesheff from Stockland as independent non-executive directors.
The trust will have a deliberate focus on hyper-convenience and daily needs tenants and a strong diversification across tenants, sectors and geographies.
Passengers on the first flights from Melbourne after four months of border closures landed at Sydney Airport to a party atmosphere, with Bondi lifeguard models, coffee, doughnuts and the sounds of Welcome Back, Kotter.
Qantas flight QF401 was first to touch down, at 7.25am on Monday, greeted by a welcoming committee from Destination NSW and drag duo Penny Tration and Coco Jumbo.
Shares in the Airport were last up 1.8 per cent at $6.93 and have gained 25 per cent in November so far.
Regulatory pressure on the big banks knocked Australian dividend payments to an 11-year low $13.4 billion for the third quarter according to new analysis of shareholder returns.
Janus Henderson’s latest Global Dividend Index shows Australian dividends fell by 40.3 per cent - or $12.3 billion - during the period, with cuts from the banks having a particularly large impact.
Last year the local banks accounted for half the dividends in the Australian part of the index.
But in 2020, under pressure from regulators only to pay up to half their earnings out in dividends, and already with extremely high payout ratios, Australia’s banks had no choice but to make big cuts to meet the mandated target, ranging from -60 per cent to -70 per cent in the third quarter.
The corporate watchdog is investigating Australia's largest equities trading platform over an outage in mid-November that potentially breached its market licence obligations.
The ASX confirmed this morning that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission was investigating the four-hour outage on November 16, that could have breached its obligations to provide a transparent and efficient market.
"ASX acknowledges that this is appropriate given ASIC’s regulatory oversight," it said. "ASX takes its obligations very seriously and will cooperate fully with ASIC."
The statement was authorised by the ASX’s group counsel Daniel Moran and comes after ASIC flagged last week it was concerned about the trading platform’s infrastructure.
Village Roadshow shares resumed trading shortly before lunchtime today and have jumped 17.1 per cent to $2.87, the highest price since 12 March.
This morning it confirmed BGH has raised the offer price for a full takeover to as much as $3 cash per share, as flagged last week.
Shares had been in a trading halt since Wednesday, 18 November.
Stem cell treatments maker Mesoblast is powering forward as the largest ASX gainer this afternoon, up 10.7 per cent to $4.04 just after 2:00pm. This follows gains of 11.3 per cent on Friday and takes the stock to a six-week high.
Chief executive Silviu Itesu puts the gains down to investors continuing to digest the company’s news from Friday that it had inked a long term strategic partnership with Novartis, worth $US50 million in upfront payments as well as future milestone payments the company says could net up to $US750 million over the lifetime of the deal. He is also the largest shareholder with 11.7 per cent of shares.
“This is not about the up front [payment] - it is what it is. This is really about the deliverables in the short term and mid-term,” Itesu told Markets Live.
The Novartis deal will see the companies working together on developing Mesoblast’s COVID-19 treatment and treatments for other respiratory diseases. It provides a solid platform for Mesoblast to continue its research, which is a cash-intensive work.
The biotech posted a $US24.5 million quarterly loss last Friday and also said it was going into battle to get its flagship product, remestemcel-L, approved for paediatric use in the US.