It had been looking like a reasonably positive day for the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) up until lunch time. But with Trump pulling ahead in the race to the White House, the index has plummeted and is down by 1% to 5,191 points.
But all this could of course change depending on how the US election unfolds later in the day. For now, four shares which have managed to put on particularly strong gains for their respective shareholders are as follows:
SmartTrans Holdings Limited (ASX: SMA) shares have rocketed 38% to 1.8 cents after the smartphone payment provider announced plans to establish a WeChat e-commerce market place for Australian merchants to sell their products online in China. According to the release WeChat has 700 million users, with 94% using the service daily. The company expects the market place to be fully operational and generating sales by Christmas this year.
Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd (ASX: VAH) shares have jumped 7% to 23 cents despite there being no news out of the airline today. Even though its share price has lost half its value this year, I still see little value in its shares unfortunately. On the other hand, arch rival Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) could be a good investment if oil prices remain below US$50 a barrel.
Webjet Limited (ASX: WEB) shares are up 9.5% to $10.21 after the online travel agent provided the market with extremely positive full year earnings guidance. Following sustained growth in bookings in both its B2B and B2C segments, management expects EBITDA excluding one-time gains to come in at $60 million. If it delivers on this guidance it will be an impressive 64% increase on last year's result.
Western Areas Ltd (ASX: WSA) shares are up by 3.5% to $2.86 today on the back of an upgrade from Macquarie. According to a research note analysts at the bank have upgraded the nickel miner from neutral to outperform thanks to rising nickel prices. This is bad news for short sellers. Western Areas is one of the most shorted shares on the ASX with 14% of its shares held short. It looks as though it might be time for them to buy shares to close their positions.
