The Aussie market’s stellar run continues, racking up its second successive day of fresh all-time highs despite resources sector weakness.
The Australian sharemarket broke records for the second straight day despite resources stocks weighing heavily and an unconvincing overnight lead from Wall Street.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index climbed to a fresh intraday peak before closing just 7.9 points higher at 7511.1 while the All Ordinaries Index inched up 0.9 points to 7779.6.
CommSec analyst James Tao said it had been a choppy start to the trading session after a mixed lead from the US, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq in the green but the other major indices were in the red.
Bank stocks helped drive local gains, with ANZ appreciating 0.57 per cent to $28.23, Commonwealth Bank improving 1.15 per cent to $103.41, National Australia Bank adding 0.84 per cent to $26.54 and Westpac inching 0.2 per cent higher to $24.89.
Pinnacle Investments delivered an investor presentation after market close yesterday, highlighting its more than doubling in full-year net profit, a record result that came after record funds inflows.
Shares in the financial services company soared to all-time heights, up 8.95 per cent at $14.85.
“Given the results it’s no surprise the company reached its pinnacle to date,” OMG chief executive Ivan Tchourilov said.
“Market performance this last financial year gave the investment company strong tailwinds, with inflows and realised performance fees resulting in profits skyrocketing 108 per cent.
“While paying a nice dividend, you have to wonder what they have planned for the remainder of their bloated war chest. An acquisition, perhaps?”
In the retail sector, furniture and homewares chain Nick Scali doubled its full-year underlying net profit to $84.2m, saying new additions to its expanding showroom network had performed above expectations while online sales soared.
It also declared a fully franked final dividend of 25 cents per share, bringing the full-year payout to 65 cents per share.
Despite the strong results, Nick Scali shares went south, dipping 0.08 per cent to $12.31.
“They’ve beat guidance, doubled underlying profit and announced a decent dividend, but the effect of Australia’s most recent lockdown has investors erring on the side of caution,” Mr Tchourilov said.
“June retail sales were down … July and August are expected to be even worse.
“It’s no surprise they’re holding off on guidance for now.”
Premier Investments, which owns brands including Peter Alexander and Smiggle, retreated 0.92 per cent to $26.89 after continuing its war of words with Myer.
Solomon Lew-led Premier is Myer’s biggest shareholder but is unhappy with its performance and wants to overhaul its board.
Premier said in a statement it noted press articles relating to Myer’s appointment of “defence” advisers, saying it had “no current intention of launching a takeover offer for Myer”.
A Myer spokesman said Premier’s statement came “despite wanting to fill the Myer board with their nominees”, who the department store chain demands details about.
“Given previous Premier statements, other shareholders have questioned whether Premier wants control of the Myer board without paying a premium to all shareholders,” he said.
“We have a shareholder who holds 15.77 per cent of the company who is seeking to replace the board with their own unnamed nominees and is ignoring good corporate governance and the company’s constitution to achieve its aims.
“That leaves the other 84.23 per cent shareholders potentially denied a takeover premium.
“The Myer board will maintain good corporate governance and not compromise it to suit someone else’s agenda.”
Rio Tinto fell 1.69 per cent to $132.13, BHP backtracked 1.7 per cent to $53.14 and Fortescue dropped 3.4 per cent to $23.27 after suspending certain operations while testing workers after a Covid-19 scare.
A fly-in, fly-out maintenance contractor who had been at the Cloudbreak mine for seven days returned a weak positive test result but subsequently returned a negative test result.
Fortescue said the suspension was not expected to dent iron ore shipments.
Mr Tchourilov said a lot of his company’s clients bought on the mining sector dip, including Pilbara Minerals, which shed 1.94 per cent to $2.02, and fellow lithium business Lake Resources, which slumped 4.17 per cent to 57.5 cents.
Iron ore explorer Pantera Minerals made a stellar ASX debut, with its shares more than doubling in price to 40.5 cents.
Gold miner Resolute inked a deal to sell its Bibiani mine in Ghana for $US90m ($A121m) in cash, sending its shares 4.5 per cent higher to 58 cents.
“This particular mine has had issues previously with the Ghanaian government earlier this year and its mining leases,” Mr Tao noted.
Energy stocks suffered after oil prices fell for the third straight day.
Origin slid 2.03 per cent to $4.34, Oil Search suitor Santos gave up 1.24 per cent to $6.38 and Woodside slid 1.54 per cent to $21.70.
Embattled tech firm Nuix lifted 2.75 per cent to $2.62.
“It’s been a hard slog for those who got it on issue, with ASIC currently investigating their IPO prospectus, among other things,” Mr Tchourilov said.
He said it was “a massive red flag” Nuix recently said its full-year results would be posted on August 30 – the last day of reporting season.
The Aussie dollar was fetching 73.95 US cents, 53.22 British pence and 62.46 Euro cents in afternoon trade.
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