There have been some big moves on the ASX boards on Thursday.
Two ASX stocks that are heading in very different directions are named below. Here's what is driving their share prices today:
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Nuix Ltd (ASX: NXL)
The Nuix share price is up 5% to $1.89. This follows the announcement of an agreement to acquire Linkurious, which is a graph-powered AI decision platform, for up to 20 million euros (~A$35.4 million).
The release notes that the Paris-founded business provides technology that allows customers to visually explore and investigate graph data, to detect patterns of interest and investigate alerts.
Management notes that the acquisition builds on Nuix's innovation roadmap through the incorporation of powerful and intuitive graph technology and data visualisation.
Linkurious had Annualised Contract Value (ACV) of ~ 7 million euros (~A$12 million) at the end of June and recorded positive EBITDA and operating cash flow for the full year to 31 December 2024.
Nuix's interim CEO, John Ruthven, said:
The acquisition of Linkurious is an exciting accelerator for our strategic vision to enable our customers with insights from complex data at unparallelled speed and scale. This injection of graph-native expertise, proven link analysis technology and quality customers will allow us to bring immediate value to our customers.
Step One Clothing Ltd (ASX: STP)
The Step One share price is crashing 31% to 33.5 cents. Investors have been selling the underwear retailer's shares after it released a disappointing trading update.
Management advised that based on year-to-date trading, including estimates for December, it expects half year revenue to be in the range of $30 million and $33 million. This represents a decline of between 31% to 37% on the $48.1 million recorded in the prior corresponding period.
Things will be worse for its earnings, with management expecting its EBITDA to be a loss of between $9 million and $11 million. This compares to a profit of $11.3 million a year ago. Though, this half will include a $10 million provision for inventory obsolescence. It commented:
The recent sales results were materially below expectations, and our efforts to clear older and slower-moving inventory were not successful. As a result, the Company has raised a $10 million obsolescence provision against this legacy stock. This inventory is now fully provisioned, and no further material provisions are anticipated at this stage.
In light of the above, the ASX stock has withdrawn its FY 2026 EBITDA guidance and advised that no updated guidance will be issued at this stage. It will update the market once greater visibility over trading and inventory outcomes is available.
