Welcome to Thursday. Here are the five things I'm looking at today on the Australian sharemarket.
- The S&P/ ASX 200 Index (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) has opened down 0.3%, as most of the top 20 stocks, which represent a large portion of the index, fall into the red. US markets posted flat results overnight, although the S&P 500 closed above 2,000 points and has gained close to 5% since August 7.As Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown PLC in London told Bloomberg,
"Many of the blocks are in place for the equity markets to make further progress".
Lower-for-longer interest rates and the slowly recovering US economy means our market is likely to follow the same tune.
- Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) has reported a statutory loss of $2.8 billion for the 2014 financial year, after taking a writedown of $2.6 billion on its International fleet of planes.It says a lot when Qantas' Frequent Flyer program remains its most profitable business, posting earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of $286 million, 10% higher than the previous year. Qantas shares were up more than 5% in early morning trading, after beating analysts estimates.
CEO Alan Joyce says the company has "come through the worst", but I wonder how many times previous Qantas CEOs have uttered similar words, and how many will in future.
- Another company trying to get back on the road to recovery is Billabong International Limited (ASX: BBG). Billabong has reported a net loss of $234 million for the 2014 financial year. Included in that were also more one off writeoffs and expenses.Still, it could've been worse – last year the company reported a $859 million loss.Billabong shares were down 5% in early trade.
- Tweet of the Day
"There is no doubt today's numbers are confronting, but they represent the yr that is past" Mr Joyce said <– you didn't say that last yr!
Peter Esho (@PeterEsho) August 27, 2014
Qantas posted an underlying profit of $192 million in 2013. - Stock of the Day is brought to you by Andrew Mudie – Empired Ltd (ASX: EPD).You may not have heard of Empired before, but the small IT services company still looks cheap according to Andrew.
