Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
A listener production.
A sluggish start to the week as Aussie stocks slipped for a 12th time in 15 days.
And CSL shares just plunged to their lowest level since 2016.
Good afternoon, I'm Steve Daglian.
I'm Laura Bessarati.
It's Monday the 11th of May. Welcome to the ComSec Market Update.
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Chapter 2: Why are Australian shares retreating this week?
Well, we've just extended Friday's sharp decline. So if you cast your mind back to Friday, I know it feels like a while ago, but the Aussie market was down by one and a half percent. So that was our worst day in quite a little while. But today we've just extended those declines. Now, earlier on in the day, it was worse. So we're down about twice as much, down by 1.1 percent at our worst levels.
At the moment, heading into the close, down by roughly half of one percent. And really, this is all hinging on the back of the situation between the US and Iran, which is you know, continuing for how many months now? So it started on the 28th of February and now we're at the 11th of May. So it's been going on much longer than many had potentially initially expected.
Absolutely. And look, usually we'd look to the US market to give us an idea about how we might open locally the next day. The US markets actually hit fresh record highs on Friday, they rose quite strongly. There was stronger-than-expected US data, which basically highlighted a more resilient labour market than expected.
In fact, there were close to twice as many jobs added in April as expected over in the United States, with the unemployment rate remaining steady at 4.3%. But the reason for the declines locally today... continues, as you pointed out, due to the US-Iran situation. So President Trump this morning basically dismissed Iran's response to the US proposal for peace talks to end the war.
He basically said they were totally unacceptable. Now, this post on social media from the president came at 6.15am this morning, around that time, Sydney time. So we're one of the first markets to respond to the news and futures generally have been pointing to declines in overnight trade tonight.
Yeah, and I think it's just that back and forth between maybe these tensions are going to be over sometime soon and then the next day they're not going to be over. So really just feeling concerns that tensions could continue escalating. So we did see a response in the oil market, as has been the case, you know, since the conflict began. So we did see oil prices climb to around 105 US a barrel.
So higher on the back of, you know, those doubts that a peace deal will be reached anytime soon. So that really flowed through to the Aussie market in terms of energy stocks improving. So they are one of the few bright spots amid almost a sea of red, so up by roughly 1%.
But if you do recall, you know, we did have some optimism over the course of last week that perhaps the deal could be close to, you know, they could be close to an agreement between the US and Iran that weighed on oil prices and energy stocks improving. last week. So over the course of last week, we did see energy being one of the worst performing sectors. It was down by around 7.5%.
But if we look further back in March, it was up 18.5%. So it's been very volatile in the energy space and also in the oil prices as well.
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Chapter 3: What impact are US-Iran tensions having on the market?
Certainly none doing worse today than healthcare, which are down by 6.5%. But outside of that, you've got financials, which are falling by about three quarters of a percent today.
Yeah, the healthcare sector actually falling to its lowest level since late 2017. So it's been a long time since it's been around these lows. And that's largely because of one stock, CSL.
Absolutely. I mean, CSL today is having a bit of a shocker. It's down around 16%. It was down more than 20 at one point earlier this morning. So basically the lowest it's been in roughly 10 years. So on its own, it's making a pretty big difference in holding the market back today. Now, the reason for the declines, it actually updated the market, which is obviously hasn't been well received.
telling investors that it now expects revenues for the year to hit around $15.2 billion. That's around $600 million below prior forecast. Net profit, it reckons, should come in at around $3.1 billion. Again, around $250 million below prior estimates.
Now, it also flagged another $5 billion of impairments, this time linked in part to the V4 business that it bought for close to $12 billion around four years ago. The interim chief executive also today saying that its growth initiatives are working, but the financial payoff and benefits are probably going to take longer than expected to flow through.
Now, CSL is now down by around 45% this year, but a crazier stat is it has shed something like 70% from where it was at its peak, you know, back during COVID days where it was actually briefly the biggest stock on the market.
Absolutely. And look, it depends where it does close up today, but it could be on track for its worst day on record if it's down more than 16.9% by the end of the session. In some brighter news, though, a stock that has been improving today has been IGA owner Metcash. It was out with a solid trading update this morning.
Now, despite the challenging market environment, it says it expects full-year profits to come in between $268 and $270 million, thanks to a stronger second half. Now, this is slightly below its profits from last year in FY25 of 2020, $275.5 million. However, given the current macroeconomic environment, investors were likely expecting even softer profits.
So, if it wasn't for declining tobacco sales, its growth could have even been better because group revenue growth was actually up 3.8% if you exclude tobacco, But if you include it, group revenue only grew 0.7%. So really, it's tobacco segment holding the company back. And out of all of its segments, we actually saw the strongest growth in its hardware and tools businesses.
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