ASX News LIVE | ASX Flat after Mixed Session on Wall St; Flight Centre, Pilbara Feature

The ASX 200 closed just below flat at -0.09%, trading at 7,963.7 in a fairly rangebound day of trading for the major benchmark.

On close, eight of the eleven sectors were down, with Real Estate leading the losses today, falling -1.60%, followed by Energy stocks.

Goodman Group and Stockland fell by -2% in real estate, while in energy Woodside continued its slide, falling -1.05%.

The Aussie dollar also continued its slide, falling -0.56% to US 65.92 cents, well down from its US 67.50 just a week ago.

One bright spot in trading today was Gold, with the spot price rising +0.34% to 2,416.82, which supported local gold producers and explorers.

Emerald Resources rose +5.5%, while West African Resources rose +4.5%, and Evolution Mining was up +3.5%.

Tomorrow, we could see another tepid day of trading for US stocks after Tesla’s iffy quarterly results and marginally better results from Alphabet (Google).

Another lithium miner has plummeted on the stock market, this time its Argosy Minerals Ltd [ASX:AGY] which is down by around -40% in trading today after announcing the indefinite suspension of its operations at its 2,000tpa facility at Rincon Lithium project in Argentina.

The full reasoning can be read here. Put simply, the company has decided to suspend activities at the site due to the low lithium prices.

Argosy Managing Director, Jerko Zuvela said today:

‘The Company is resetting to achieve long-term and sustained success, and to realise Argosy’s ambition to fully develop the Rincon Lithium Project. We are very proud of the substantial progress made to date.’

 

‘We are cognisant of current lithium market conditions and are establishing the optimal strategic pathway to maximise shareholder value to become an international lithium carbonate producer.’

Argosy says it will continue pre-development engineering works at its 10,000tpa project to de-risk the project and capitalise on a hoped return of lithium prices.

Asset manager Perpetual [ASX:PPT] has seen its share price fall today after releasing its latest FY24 business update.

The full details can be read here, but the big takeaway for investors was the fund outflows seen.

Total assets under management (AUM) fell from $27.4 billion in March to $215 as of 30 June.

The company said this was primarily due to ‘the impact of negative market movements and distributions of $1.4 billion, currency movements $2.1 billion and net outflows of $8.9 billion.’

With today’s falls the company has seen its share price fall by -13% in the past 12 months.

The ASX 200 is trading flat around midday, with five sectors down and six up; the market appears poised for a flat day of trading.

The Discretionary (+0.46%) sector is holding up the market at noon, with Wesfarmers up +0.72% and JB Hi-Fi gaining +2.81%.

The Mining (+0.34$) sector is also slightly up after this morning’s trading, with BHP down by -0.57%, Fortescue up by +0.42%, and Rio Tinto trading flat at $113.73 per share.

The picture for these major miners is mixed. Iron ore futures hover around US$100 per tonne, down nearly 12% in the past month alone.

Helping the benchmark today are gold miners, who are largely up with the All Ords Gold index up +2.96% thanks to rising gold prices.

Gold spot prices are up +0.73% to US$2,413.3 in the session today, lifting players like Southern Cross Gold, up 10%, Catalyst Metals gaining 8.48%, and Emerald Resources, up +6.41%.

Telix Pharmaceuticals [ASX:TLX] has seen its shares fall by around 5% after announcing a $650 million raise via convertible bonds.

Telix’s Managing Director, Christian Behrenburch, said today:

‘The Convertible Bonds provide us with attractive, low-cost financing at a clear inflection point in Telix’s journey. The proceeds deliver financial flexibility to execute on our strategic priorities, while reducing potential dilution of existing shareholders.’

The bonds will over a 32.5% conversion above the reference price of $18.70 per share after a maturity in 2029, plus a 2.375% per annum coupon.

Shares in the company are up by 71.6% in the past 12 months as radiopharmaceutical sees heavy investment and interest in 2024.

Lithium miner Pilbara Minerals [ASX:PLS] spiked 4.7% on opening after recording a 58% jump in revenue in the June quarter, reaching $305 million.

That gain was quickly reversed, with the stock heading negative before clawing back 1%.

Expect high volumes and choppy trading on this one all day as the bulls and bears continue to battle on the future of lithium prices.

Pilbara will be happy with a strong operational showing, seeing record production of 226.2 thousand dry metric tonnes (dmt) of spodumene in the June Quarter, up 26%.

Unit operating cost also fell 12% to $591/dmt compared to the previous quarter, thanks to higher volumes and improved plant recoveries.

You can read the full details of the activities report here.

Flight Centre [ASX:FLT] has opened down -7.21% today after the company cut its profit guidance for FY24.

The amended profit range is now $316–324 million, that’s a lower, but tighter range than the prior $300–340 million.

The company also said it expects to hit a total transaction value (TTV) of $23.7 billion, that’s in line with its FY19 result.

FLT Managing Director Graham Turner tried to find a silver lining for investors, saying:

‘While market conditions were challenging during FY24, we again delivered solid TTV growth as customers prioritised travel over other areas of discretionary spend. Year-on-year growth rates were, however, adversely impacted by the Indian wholesale foreign exchange business’s closure (FY23: $360m TTV) and significant airfare price deflation during the 2H.’

 

‘TTV for FY24 is likely to finish in line with our record FY19 result, which means we will have delivered the same level of sales with about 65% of our FY19 workforce, plus an expanding network of independent travel agents and agencies.’

Shareholders weren’t buying the story, and with heavy adjustments throughout the business’s balance sheet the company is clearly awaiting better times in travel.

Good morning. Charlie here,

The ASX 200 opened down -0.18% to 7,957.0 after futures quickly reversed near opening to a red day after some bearish news from big ASX names. For now, the ASX 200’s day is still up in the air after a weaker session on Wall St in which most major indices fell except the small-cap Russel 200.

Many traders were awaiting clearer signs of the direction of Big Tech and the S&P 500 as Tesla and Google reported after closing bell. Many were right to hold off as both showed a mixed picture for markets.

Tesla missed Wall St estimates for the second quarter, with slower sales and adjusted earnings of US 52 cents per share, below the US 60-cent estimates.

Tesla’s revenue did see a bump, rising to US$25.5 billion, higher than the expected US$24.6 billion, but apart from that, not much else looked good.

Investors were particularly concerned about the company’s shrinking margins. Gross margins ex-credits were 14.6%, down from 16.4% last quarter as it continues to cut prices to try and boost sales and compete with Chinese carmakers.

Google looked better with a second-quarter revenue beat, with higher cloud-computing revenues and strong sales revenue from its search ads.

The company reported net income per share at US$1.89, above the estimated US$1.84.

Total sales for Alphabet were a strong US$71.36 billion for the quarter, above the estimated US$70.7b.

On local markets, iron ore and copper continued their slide overnight, with iron ore futures briefly falling below US$100 per tonne before recovering.

We have reporting from Boss Energy, Pilbara Minerals, Perpetual, and a downgrade from Flight Centre; stay tuned.