Got Milk: The tide turned for ASX dairy stocks in September

ASX dairy stocks had a subtle month in September, experiencing a 4 per cent decline.

But arguably the biggest surprise was that industry leader A2 Milk (ASX:A2M) was among the laggards rather than the leaders, falling by 20 per cent.

But A2 fell last week after telling shareholders it was witnessing a fall off in its ‘daigou’ (which means to by on behalf of) trade.

Here are all ASX dairy stocks and their performance in September:

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Code	Description	Price	% Change 1 Month	% Change 1 Year	MktCap
AU8	Aumake Int Ltd	0.082	37	-34	$26.4M
BFC	Beston Global Ltd	0.1	20	-17	$58.4M
FSF	Fonterra Share Fund	3.75	4	21	$378.0M
WHA	Wattle Health Au Ltd	0.53	0	0	$129.4M
HRL	Hrlholding	0.105	0	-5	$51.8M
AHF	Aust Dairy Group	0.062	-3	-52	$23.4M
CLV	Clover Corporation	2.08	-3	-30	$329.3M
NUC	Nuchev Limited	1.89	-6	0	$74.3M
JAT	Jatcorp Limited	0.024	-8	-57	$23.8M
KTD	Keytone Dairy	0.22	-8	-53	$55.2M
SM1	Synlait Milk Ltd	5.18	-9	-39	$928.8M
MBH	Maggie Beer Holdings	0.24	-13	45	$49.7M
HVM	Happy Valley	0.165	-13	0	$29.2M
A2M	The A2 Milk Company	14	-20	15	$10.4B
BUB	Bubs Aust Ltd	0.73	-20	-45	$449.9M
BXN	Bioxyne Ltd	0.012	-20	-33	$7.0M

The winners

Conversely, the leading stock in September has spent much of 2020 as a laggard for the same reason A2 fell last month.

AuMake (ASX:AU8), which runs brick and mortar stores and an ecommerce platform, had a tough start to the year. The drying up of tourism had the same effect on the daigou trade, which is important for AuMake.

But the company has gradually recovered because it has still been able to reach customers online.

In fact, its revenue and gross profits increased compared with the year before.

While the company has had no news in the last month other than an escrow release, the positive earnings result was good enough to continue the momentum.

The other noteworthy winner was Beston (ASX:BFC). It too has had little news since its results in August, but just like AuMake the company witnessed an increase in its earnings and revenues.

In June it sold its dairy farm in South Australia for $40m while retaining the rights to 100 per cent of the dairy supply from that farm for the next decade. It has also received takeover interest this year.

The one other winner among ASX dairy stocks in September was Fonterra (ASX:FSF). The stock, which is New Zealand based, gained a modest 4 per cent.

As it uses a financial year of August 1 to July 31 it only reported its results a fortnight ago, revealing a 5 per cent rise in revenue and a shift from a $122m loss to a $659m profit.