Thanks Endless and regulars. Apologies to Shantaram for crediting that layabout Trees with doing some work last night.
Half-time round-up:
A poorly-received record profit from market heavyweight CBA and mining giant Rio Tinto turning ex-dividend helped drag Australian shares lower for the first time in three sessions.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was trading 13 points or 0.2% lower at 5517 as investors digested a mixed bag of earnings this morning. The financial sector eased 0.1% after CBA's full-year earnings met analyst expectations but the nation's largest bank was cautious about the economic outlook. A 3% rally in CSL helped health stocks rally 1.2%, one of only two sectors to record a gain. The materials sector declined 0.7% as Rio traded without a dividend of $1.039.
Among the other winners from this morning's round of company reports were EGP, SUN and CWP. Companies that sold off after reporting earnings included AMM, PRY, CPU, OZL and CRZ.
Consumer confidence continued to recover from the Federal budget announcement lows. The WBC-MI index rose 3.8% to 98.5 this month from 94.9 in July.
"Over the last three months, the index has increased by a total of 5.9%, indicating that much of the damage to confidence in the aftermath of the budget has been repaired," Westpac chief economist Bill Evans told
Fairfax.
Wage growth remained subdued, declining to a rate of 0.6% last quarter from 0.7% in the March quarter. At 2.6%, the annual rate of growth was beneath the consumer inflation rate of 3%, suggesting that wages were contracting in 'real' terms.
Japanese shares shrugged off news that the economy contracted 1.7% last quarter, slightly less than the 1.9% anticipated by economists. The Nikkei rallied 0.16%. China's Shanghai Composite slipped 0.41% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.09%. Dow futures were recently up six points or less than 0.1%.
Crude oil futures were flat at US$97.19 a barrel this morning. Spot gold was $2.20 weaker at US$1,308.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying 92.8 US cents.
Good to see the market pare the falls despite several headwinds this morning. There were more losers than winners from this morning's profit reports, but nothing that really set alarm bells ringing. Decent morning here. IBY is my kind of share - the kind of Chicken Licken that over-reacts to every setback and then swings on the emotion. Traded it twice this morning. Also got something out MGX off the low. Liked the look of TON but hoped it would test 30c before bouncing. Can't get 'em all. I've had a buy order for YRR sitting at 1.8c since the start of the day and reckon there's still a chance of a hit before the session is done - the buy depth in that share is as authentic as a porn star's cleavage.
