The ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) was eventful again this week. Here are four big stories you may have missed that affected businesses in the ASX 200 index:
House price recovery
The latest CoreLogic Home Value Index results are in and it was another storming month for property owners.
In October 2019, Sydney house prices went up 1.7%, Melbourne house prices went up 2.3% and national house prices increased 1.2%. That means that over the past three months, Sydney and Melbourne house prices have gone up 5% and 5.5% respectively.
On Friday the Domain Holdings Australia Ltd (ASX: DHG) share price rose 1.3% in response and the REA Group Limited (ASX: REA) share price went up 0.6%.
Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG)
The investment bank announced its half year result this week.
Macquarie is still expecting the FY20 profit to be lower than FY19's profit, but the half-year result saw the net profit increase by 11% to $1.46 billion and the dividend rose by 16.2% to $2.50 per share.
CSR Limited (ASX: CSR)
Construction materials business CSR reported its half year profit to investors.
As expected, the slowdown in residential construction activity impacted performance this period with Building Products earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) falling 18%.
Statutory profit was up 157% from last year because the prior corresponding period included impairment charges from the Viridian Glass business which was sold. Underlying net profit fell 20% to $71.6 million.
Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW)
Woolworths reported some good news and bad news during the week.
The good news was that Woolworths reported an excellent sales update. Total first quarter sales from continuing operations (which excludes Petrol) grew by 7.1% to $15.9 billion. This was largely driven by a sales 7.8% increase from Australian Food with comparable sales of 6.6%.
However, the supermarket giant also admitted that it may have underpaid staff to the tune of $200 million to $300 million due to the award requirements.
