from today's Oz TPG, Ardent soar but stockmarket closes flat...

from today's Oz
TPG, Ardent soar but stockmarket closes flat

• JOHN CONROY
• BUSINESS SPECTATOR
• MARCH 22, 2016 4:45PM

The Australian market has ended the session flat, as some strong individual company performances helped offset modest declines in the materials and financials sectors.

At the 4.15pm (AEDT) official market close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was unchanged at 5166.6, while the broader All Ordinaries index ticked up 5.9 points, or 0.11 per cent, to 5230.8.
Lonsec senior equities strategist Dan Moradi said trade had been subdued, with a few exceptions including Tabcorp, Ardent Leisure and TPG Telecom..
“But there hasn’t been a lot of movement in the major stocks, ” he said.
“The market is catching its breath after the rally we’ve had the last couple of weeks. I’d expect trading to drop off further as we head into the long weekend.”
Tabcorp dropped 2.68 per cent in after its former chief executive resigned from sharemarket operator ASX last night, with the gaming company being investigated over bribery allegations from 2010. Investors reacted positively to Ardent Leisure, owner of Queensland’s Dreamworld and other entertainment assets, after it announced a structure review, putting its d’Albora Marinas business up for sale in the process. Ardent Leisure shares jumped 11.79 per cent to $2.18.
TPG Telecom was up sharply after the firm reported a better-than-expected profit result in its first update since its tie-up with iiNet late last year. TPG jumped 7.15 per cent to $11.09 while peer Telstra was up 1.35 per cent.
But BHP Billiton helped drag the materials sector down, the miner off 1.49 per cent despite lifts in iron ore and oil prices overnight, while the big banks also struggled from the open.
Elsewhere in equities news, Cabcharge was trading slightly lower despite the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announcing it had given the go-ahead to an amended ihail, after initially blocking the Cabcharge-backed taxi booking app in October.
Mineral sands miner Iluka was off 1.76 per cent after it announced chief executive David Robb would stand aside in the second half of this year as part of the company’s succession plan.
Elsewhere, in economic news, ANZ-Roy Morgan’s weekly consumer confidence gauge found a slight slip but the measure remains above the long-run average, while ahead of the session the Australian dollar was edging again towards US76c on the oil and iron ore price lifts. The currency had hit a high of US76.27c in overnight trade.
Wall Street closed slightly higher in quiet trade at the start of a holiday-shortened trading week.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...t/news-story/d7a086f3324f57e63a676ace967a6535