• S&P ASX 200 trades flattish, closing today’s overall proceedings (just) in the green at +0.12%. 
  • Link (LNK) cops a downer on the back of pretty crap news from the HESTA super fund.
  • Integrated services firm Downer, however, has more of an uppish, TGIF feeling. 

It’s the EOFY. But you and your tax man human already knew that. And how has the ASX 200 fared on this fine Friday, then?

It was as flat as a Pommy Bazball-era pitch, earlier, with some overhead, macro conditions threatening. It’s since broken up a bit on the surface like a fifth-day pitch should, but it’s generally playing pretty true.

Here, take a gander…

Right then, that’s probably enough of my insufferable, polarising cricket-based analogies for one week – time to give the sector info to you straight before we get outta here quicker than a tail-ender on a bouncy green top.

This handy marketindex.com.au chart tells the story better than we can explain it on a Friday afternoon, so here you are then…

Source: marketindex.com.au

IT, Energy, Industrials, congrats – you’re crushing it again. Staples and Health Care… yeah, not so much.

Now, before we talk about a few large-ish cap stocks (Link, Downer et al) more specifically…

 

… just quickly, what’s doing in overseas markets?

Checking in here again for you, although if you read Gregor’s Lunch Wrap earlier, you’ll be pretty well across what happened over in the US overnight. (Not to mention a tiny purse that’s apparently just the thing for carrying his condoms.)

In some sort of nutshell, though, Wall Street types aren’t exactly high-fiving each other raw, but US stonks fared okay on the whole. Still a day to go there before the monthly close, of course.

But on Thursday arvo in the States, the S&P 500 closed up 0.45%, the Dow finished 0.8%, while the tech-tastic Nasdaq… we refer you back to that flat pitch analogy above. A pissweak, badly disguised knuckleball perhaps, if you’d prefer a baseball reference. It was kinda flat.

Tech stonks, then, were lacklustre, although Tesla was up a fraction (+0.49%).

Sentiment check…

“US Treasury yields jumped 13 basis points to 3.838% on the 10-year, and 14 basis points to 4.859% on the 2-year after stronger than expected GDP data landed with a thud on the steps of the White House,” wrote Gregor.

This prompted inevitable almost-immediate soundbites of “resilience” and “Recession? Pah, what recession?” from the Fed and the White House…

Meanwhile, across the pond “London’s FTSE fell 0.38% and further west, the DAX was down 0.01%, and the French CAC was up 0.36%,” Gregor told us.

Asia… mixed bag of dumplings here, but the Nikkei was: -0.16%; while the Shanghai Index gave us: +0.74%.

Oh, and just because you’re getting me here today… how’s Bitcoin faring?

It’s going quite well for the moment. Been chopping sideways all week, on the whole, but at the time of writing, it appears to be building some strength with a 2% gain over the past 24 hours, and pushing back up towards US$30,800.

Expect extreme volatility just ahead on its digital highway, however, as a very, very large BTC options expiry event approaches to close out June trading. Hot take: could go violently up, down or move, far less violently, sideways.

For more crypto excitement, tune in to Mooners and Shakers in the mornings. It’s 58% on time before 11am, every time.

 

BIG CAP WINNERS

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Happiest campers:

• Downer EDI (ASX:DOW): +4% > The large ($2.64b) integrated services company is having a beaut day in the market, thanks to the reveal that it’s “achieved contractual close on the Queensland Train Manufacturing Program (QTMP), the largest investment in new rollingstock in Queensland history”.

This is big news for the company for various reasons listed here, but the financial upper for Downer overall comes in the tune of projected revenue of $4.6 billion for the company.

• PSC Insurance Group (ASX:PSI): +5% > on no fresh news.

• Mader Group (ASX:MAD): +5% > on no fresh news.

• Emerald Resources (ASX:EMR): +4% > on not much, but perhaps this – a change in substantial holding notice.

• Imugene (ASX:IMU) : +5.6% > As Gregor noted earlier today, the Aussie immuno-oncology stock has been doing very well today, “up 8.43% on news that a Phase 2 trial of its HER-Vaxx (IMU-131), a HER-2-targeting peptide vaccine plus SOC chemotherapy in patients with HER-2+ advanced stomach cancer, has yielded some super-encouraging results”.

Meanwhile, last (and least healthy) things are afoot at the losing end of the craps table, too…

 

BIG CAP LOSERS

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BIGGEST loser:

• Link Administration Holdings (ASX:LNK): -14% > If you didn’t know, Link is “the largest provider of services in Australia’s superannuation administration industry, which services the fourth largest pension pool in the world based on funds under management”, according to it.

What it might not be too keen to talk about today, however, is the fact that:

Link has managed to lose its nine-year contract with super big gun HESTA, from FY25, which is, frankly a major bummer for the services provider, to the tune of about $48 million in group revenues.

As The Australian‘s Valerina Changarathil notes: “The contract represents approximately 4 per cent of Link’s FY23 forecast group revenue of $1.19bn. HESTA plans to transition out by the second quarter of FY25.”

Now we don’t want to make an ass out of U and ME, with a wild assumption or anything, but we can’t help but think that the resignation of Link’s group Company Secretary Sarah Turner today, might somehow be linked to the other announcement.

In any case, shareholders of LNK are in need of a stiff Friday drink. And that… is our cue to head off and do the same. See you next week.

 

 

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