• The ASX 200 index rose 0.5% on Wednesday
  • Energy prices still killing it
  • Home Consortium pumps out some stunning FY22 numbers

 

It’s okay to feel a little perplexed when the benchmark starts making good on the promise of some decent morning trade.

Sure the S&P/ASX 200 index has tossed a few sandbags over the side in the run up to the close, but, by gad, this puppy is in the green and has even stayed there.

It was an even split for the sectors, 5  came out ahead, 5 lost ground and Healthcare was absolutely flat despite some Sonic Healthcare heroics.

For the Energy Sector, up 2.7%, it was just another day at the office.

Wall Street has given up offering anything like a lead – the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended a third very average session, down 0.5%, the S&P 500 index slipped a few percentage points and at its best the tech-heavy Nasdaq was flat and lifeless like a fifth day at Bellerive.

In Dalian – again, if anyone’s listening, I used to live there – iron ore prices have lifted well over one per cent today as excitement builds around the idea of more supportive, even stimulatory Chinese measures to spark a little hope back into a properly pouty property sector.

For the second time in a week, the People’s Bank of China cut benchmark lending rates on Monday in an effort to encourage an economy still gobsmacked by COVID-zero living and schonky real estate giants.

Around the traps, Iluka Resources (ASX:ILU) gained circa 10% while Tabcorp (ASX:TAH) jumped 4.5% and Seven Group (ASX:SVM) climbed some 2.4% .

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The results today for Home Consortium (ASX:HMC) is why bullet points were invented:

  • Assets under management (AUM) up over 320% YoY to $5.8 bn
  • Funds from operations (FFO) up 143% ($91mn)
  • Funds management revenue up 490% ($64mn)
  • FY22 gross transactions of $4.6bn
  • Dividend 12 cents per share  fully franked

Elsewhere, and as Eddy Sunarto reported this morning, shares in Australia’s second biggest healthcare company – the $16 billion market cap Sonic Healthcare (ASX:SHL), are moving ahead nicely, after reporting a revenue for the full year of $9.34 billion, a 7% increase on last year.

Its bottom line net profit was $1.46 billion, an 11% increase on the pcp. This was a record profit for Sonic.

Sonic has played a major role in combating the COVID-19 pandemic during the year. Since the start of the pandemic, it has performed over 55 million COVID-19 PCR tests across seven countries of operation.

ASX-listed pathology group’s dividend lifted almost 10% as swell, on on stronger than expected cash generation from COVID-testing.

Revenue from Covid-19 testing soared 3% to $2.4bn in the year to June 30, comprising more than a quarter of the group’s total revenue.

So shares in Domino Pizza (ASX:DMP) are up sharply after the pizza chain said it was about to lift prices and revealed a plan to buy a huge number of its South East Asian franchises acquisition.

This is the company’s biggest ever single purchase and has been a terrific distraction from DMP’s 14% NPAT fall, following last year’s pizza-party record FY21.

Nah, it wasn’t all bad. DMP says global food sales topped a record $3.92 billion in FY22, with online sales passing $3 billion for the first time and, despite a 10.5 per cent drop in EBIT to $262.9 million in FY22, the group’s underlying profit is now 19.1 per cent higher than before the pandemic.

Shares are trading 6.6 per cent higher at $71.55 in afternoon trade as the pizza chain reveals it will raise the price of its products.

 

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REX. Hmm. Not good.

The regional airline is finding it tough to play with the big kids, revealing an 850% blow out in its full year figures, clattering to a -$68.3mn loss.

The pre-tax statutory hole, makes last years – $7.2mn pre-tax statutory hole but a happy memory.

Chairman Lim Kim Hai in some poorly chosen words said he was “mildly pleased” that the performance wasn’t worse.

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