The S&P/ ASX200 (ASX: XJO) is 0.7% higher in lunchtime trade today after US markets finished flat over another choppy session on Wall Street on the back of political instability in the US and Europe.
However, there are a few shares storming ahead today in Australia for different reasons, so let's take a look at what might be behind the price action.
The Trade Me Group Ltd (ASX: TME) share price is up 4.5% to A$6.08 today after the New Zealand online marketplace accepted a NZ$6.45 per share takeover offer from UK-based private equity group Apax Partners. The bid gives Trade Me an enterprise value of NZ$2.74 billion and is on 16.7x Trade Me's FY 2018 EBITDA of NZ$164 million. Apax Partners appears to have beaten off competition from rival private equity bidder Hellman & Friedman.
The Xero Limited (ASX: XRO) share price is up 4% to $39.08 today after shares on the tech-heavy NASDAQ index in the US finished 0.3% higher. Xero recently announced it has passed 1 million subscribers in Australia and New Zealand alone, and is also growing subscriber numbers strongly in the UK, US, Singapore and South Africa. The shares are still down 23% from highs above $52 hit in late August.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price is up 1.8% even after the lender admitted late yesterday afternoon that it is to make an additional $100 million provision "to cover the higher than expected total cost of the multi-year financial crime compliance program". It will also make a $200 million indemnity provision in relation to expected remediation costs for its wealth management and mortgage broking businesses that it's still planning to divest.
Speedcast International Ltd (ASX: SDA) is a satellite services business that has 9.7% 0f its shares shorted as at December 6, 2018. However, today the Speedcast share price is up 7% to $3.57 despite the company releasing no news to the market. On August 28 the company's shares fell around 37% after it handed in its full year profit report and warned about weakness across its energy division. Given the battle between the bulls and the bears, the Speedcast share price could remain volatile.
