Author: Shawn Hickman
BOQ +11.13%: Rallied strongly today despite cash earnings of $508m being around 1% below consensus while the final dividend of 24cps was inline taking the full year payout to 46c fully franked – a great 6.5% fully franked yield. A bright spot was net interest income up +7% to $797m which was 2.5% above consensus while net interest margins of 1.75% were a 2bps beat to expectations.
MM has owned this Mexican Restaurant chain that owns nearly 3,000 quick-casual eateries since March this year and while we are marginally behind on the position (-3%), the stock has been a big outperformer relative to the broader market and other sector players, and rightly so.
APX -11.71%: the digital marketing AI company fell below $3/sh for the first time since 2017 today following a downgrade to guidance. Just 6 weeks ago the company was talking to a stronger second half, though revenue was still expected to fall short of FY21 levels. Today, the company said conditions had failed to improve as expected and further uncertainty remains into the end of the year, providing guidance of $US375-395m for revenue, ~14% below FY21 and 5% below consensus.
BHP has bid $25 for OZL with a higher bid clearly anticipated with the stock trading 6% above the Big Australian’s first salvo, the question we ask (again) today is where does the best risk/reward lie for an Australian copper play:
IRE -17.3%: finance software and administration company IRESS downgraded guidance today, sending the stock to 2-year lows. The company said slowing conversion of sales, as well as higher costs and negative FX movements, would weigh on segment profit, reducing guidance by 6.5% to $166-170m for the calendar year-end.
TLX -15.4%: the oncology company announced that they have pulled an application to market into Europe. The Danish Medicines Agency requested further testing numbers for their manufacturing practices to confirm the safety of Telix’s Illuccix product.
My Bloomberg terminal is filled with bears, Blackrock says we should shun most stocks as the market is simply not pricing in a recession and a ‘hard landing’ sort of scenario while Goldman Sachs has downgraded equities to underweight in their asset allocation matrix, a similar move made by Shaw’s Chief Investment Officer a few days ago, saying that evidence that inflation is becoming persistent means higher interest rates, tightening financial conditions and slower world growth.
LKE -16.54%: the lithium hopeful tumbled today after getting caught in a tussle with the operations company they’ve employed at their Kachi site following a disagreement about milestone cut-offs. Lilac will earn a stake of up to 25% of the project if they complete 1,000 hours of operations and 2,500kg of lithium carbonate. Lake believes these milestones need to be met by 30 September, while Lilac believes they have until the end of November with the dispute now going to mediation.
LNK -20.09%: a UK court has thrown a spanner on the Dye & Durham takeover of Link, announcing around $500m may need to be put aside for any issues relating to Link’s administration of the failed Woodbridge fund. The amount reflects potential redress payments to investors in the fund, and the UK court would block the takeover if Dye & Durham fails to accept the requirement.
MAF -21.76%: the asset management company traded down to nearly 2-year lows today on news the Australian Government was looking at changes to the Special Investment Visa (SIV) process. Under the current system, migrants can effectively skip the queue before investing $5m in approved investment schemes, of which MA Financial run a number of products for.
