At lunch on Friday the S&P/ASX 200 index is on course to finish the week on a very positive note. At the time of writing the index is up a solid 1.2% to 6,587.5 points.
Here's what has been happening on the index today:
Bank shares higher.
Australia's big four banks look set to end the week on a positive note. All four banks are pushing higher at lunch and have given the benchmark index a nice boost. At lunch Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ASX: ANZ) and Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) shares are leading the way with gains of 1.4% each.
Appen rebounds.
The Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) share price has bounced back from yesterday's selloff and is pushing over 4% higher on Friday. Investors hit the sell button yesterday despite the global leader in the development of high quality, human-annotated training data for machine learning and artificial intelligence delivering a very strong half year result. Appen reported a 60% increase in revenue to $245.1 million and an 81% increase in underlying EBITDA to $46.3 million.
Gold miners sink lower.
Australian gold miners including Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST) and Resolute Mining Limited (ASX: RSG) have come under pressure on Friday after positive trade war developments sent the gold price sinking lower. At the time of writing the S&P/ASX All Ords Gold index is down 2.3%.
Austal impresses.
The Austal Limited (ASX: ASB) share price has rocketed higher on Friday following the release of the shipbuilder's full year results. In FY 2019 Austral reported an impressive 64% increase in net profit to $61.4 million. Pleasingly, more growth is expected in FY 2020 with management providing earnings before interest and tax guidance of at least $105 million. This will be a year on year increase of 13%.
Best and worst performers.
The best performer on the ASX 200 index at lunch on Friday is the Austal share price with its 9% gain. Not far behind is mining services company Ausdrill Limited (ASX: ASL). Its shares are up a further 8% after reporting a 14.2% increase in full year revenue to $1,970 million and a 15.4% lift in underlying EBIT to $217 million on Thursday. The worst performer on the index today has been the Resolute Mining share price with a 3.5% decline.
