More soft data coming in: fourth-quarter business investment fell 2.5 per cent, or more than the expected 0.5 per cent. That's after a 4 per cent fall in the third quarter.
Investment in capital goods, including buildings, structures, machinery and equipment was $27.57 billion in the quarter.
Mining capex down 9.3% in Dec quarter, to be 37.5% lower over the year. Manufacturing and 'other' capex rose at moderate pace in the quarter pic.twitter.com/5IhHUJtMav
— Callam Pickering (@CallamPickering) February 23, 2017
Businesses collectively expect to invest $112.15 billion on capital goods by the end of the 2016-17 financial year, which is 9 per cent lower than the same estimate made for the previous year.
The first estimate of capital expenditure for 2017-18 is $80.62 billion, which is 3.9 per cent lower than the first estimate for 2016-17, and also significantly lower than the $84.8 billion predicted by economists.
The Aussie dollar slipped about two-tenths of a cent to US76.75¢ on the data.
Television company Nine Entertainment has posted a $236.9 million interim loss due to massive write-downs against its goodwill and a settlement to exit a contract to buy US dramas and comedies from Warner Bros.
The network swung from a $28.1 million interim profit in the prior year.
Revenues were down 4 per cent to $662.7 million, reflecting declining advertising spend in the free-to-air television market.
And it says a lot about the health of that sector that "early signs of a more positive market" at Nine Entertainment means the company expects revenue falls in the third quarter of 2016-17 that are "marginally down" on the low single digit it expects for the year.
Still, markets are an expectation game, and Nine is one of the day's best performing stocks, up 7.8 per cent to $1.04.
The cost of Nine exiting its contract with US production house Warner Bros, which led to Nine losing the right to air old repeats of series like The Big Bang Theory and Two Broke Girls, cost the network $84.9 million.
The company also took a $260 million write-down against the value of its goodwill.
Excluding the effect of one-off items Nine reported a 4.3 per cent fall in net profit to $75 million in the six months ended December 31.
Chief executive Hugh Marks said since the Olympics, which was broadcast by rival Seven, Nine had won all the prime-time key demographic target audiences. "And for the important start to season 2017, Nine's audiences are up 13 per cent and commercial audience share up 3.9 points," he said in a statement.
The company reiterated its plans announced at is annual general meeting last year to rip $50 million from its cost base by 2018-19.
Group EBITDA before one-off items fell 6.4 per cent to $119.7 million.
Analysts expect group EBITDA for the full year to be in the range of $158 million to $187 million and Nine said "subject to short-term market conditions" that was an appropriate range.
The board declared an interim dividend of 4.5¢ payable on April 19.
Hundreds of thousands of Australians who work on Sundays will have their take-home pay slashed after a landmark ruling by the national workplace umpire.
The Fair Work Commission just announced that Sunday penalty rates paid in retail, fast food, hospitality and pharmacy industries will be reduced from the existing levels, which, in some cases, are as much as "double time".
Tuesday: If you want to own a home, get a high paying job
— _robcorr (@_robcorr) February 23, 2017
Wednesday: Wage growth is at a new record low
Thursday: Take this pay cut
💩💩💩
Full-time and part-time workers in retail will have their Sunday penalty rates dropped from 200 per cent to 150 per cent, while casuals will go from 200 per cent to 175 per cent.
The controversial decision will anger Australia's union movement, which has invested heavily in a massive campaign to safeguard weekend penalty rates across the country.
Not listed but still interesting: Australia Post has announced a bumper half-year profit of $131 million on the back of solid growth in parcels, despite a further 11 per cent fall in letter volumes.
Chief executive Ahmed Fahour, who has been heavily scrutinised in recent weeks over his $5.6 million salary, said the result showed the company is on the "right path" to transforming itself from a traditional postal service to a parcel and e-commerce firm.
Fahour, who on Friday resigned as chairman of Victoria's $60 million LaunchVic startup fund, has also been under pressure over allegations of sanctioned union rorting revealed in the AFR.
He is expected to face questions of his eight-year tenure today ahead of chairman John Stanhope fronting a parliamentary inquiry next Tuesday.
The good result came on the back of domestic parcel volumes jumping 5.7 per cent, revenue jumping 8.2 per cent to $3.5 billion and gains from business efficiency programs.
The $131 million profit in the six months to December 31 was up from just $16 million for the prior corresponding period the year before and a $222 million loss in 2015.
Australia Post's pre-tax profit also jumped from just $1 million to $197 million over the six months.
The first-half profit of Dreamworld owner Ardent Leisure more than halved after a fatal accident that killed four people last October and closed the attraction for over a month.
Sydney-based Ardent said core earnings dropped to $12.8 million in the six months to December from $30.5 million a year earlier. Revenue fell 5 per cent to $317.2 million.
"The results for the period were significantly impacted by the Dreamworld tragedy and the theme park's subsequent shutdown for 45 days," the company said.
"In addition, the group recorded a statutory loss of $49.4 million [compared with a profit of $22.7 million], primarily impacted by a $95.2 million property, plant and equipment write‐down, goodwill impairment and incident costs associated with the Dreamworld tragedy."
It declared a 2¢ interim dividend, down from 7¢ a year earlier.
The tragedy that led to claims Dreamworld had ignored safety concerns and tested the company's management skills cut Ardent's share price overnight from $2.55 to $1.88. The shares closed at $2.17 on Wednesday.
Other one‐off events that impacted earnings include the five‐month closure for refurbishment of Kingpin Crown and the loss of more than two months of earnings from Health Clubs following the completion of its sale in October 2016. It made a $45 million profit on the October sale of its Health Clubs unit for $260 million.
Ardent shares are getting punished, now down 19 per cent to $1.75.
The overall market may be deep in the red, but that's not due to today's flood of earnings, which has washed up quit a few more winners than losers:
- Qantas: +5.4%
- Westfield: -1%
- Crown: +4.2%
- Oz Minerals: +0.2%
- Alumina: -1.3%
- Ramsay: -4.4%
- Nine: +5.7%
- Southern Cross Media: flat
- Ardent Leisure: -13.4%
- Estia Health: +11.6%
- Flight Centre: -7%
- Webjet: +2.6%
- Macquarie Atlas: +0.6%
- Investa: +0.4%
- Air NZ: +3%
- Freelancer: +3.8%
- McGrath: -6.25%
- Perpetual: +1.2%
- Trade Me: +0.8%
- MYOB: +4.4%
- Kogan: +4.4%
- ClearView: -4%
- Invocare: +4.9%
- Asaleo Care: +4.2%
- Breville: +0.7%
For more on today's earnings, go to the AFR's reporting season blog
Shares continue their trend of soggy starts as investors sort through the latest welter of earnings results, including the likes today of Qantas and Crown.
The ASX 200 is off 22 points or 0.4 per cent at 5783, as traders continue to shy away from the 5800-point mark. Investors look to be taking profits in BHP, Rio and Fortescue, despite their recent massive earnings results and talk of more shareholder largesse t come. BHP is off 2.6 per cent, Rio 3.5 per cent and FMG 1.1 per cent.
Also dragging on the ASX are the supermarket owners, as Woolies gives up some of yesterday's blockbuster gains to be down 1.2 per cent, while Wesfarmers is off 0.7 per cent. The big banks are down a bit, aside from CBA which is up 0.3 per cent after trading ex-dividend yesterday.
But back to results, and investors like the numbers put up by Qantas, which is 2.8 per cent up, and Crown, which has jumped 4.2 per cent. The morning's biggest winners are Estia and Nine, as you can see from the chart below, also on earnings updates.
Among the biggest losers reporting earnings are Ramsay Health (the boss also announced he would step down), Iluka, Flight Centre and Ardent Leisure.
Sky Network TV is the morning's biggest casualty, but not on profit numbers. The company told the exchange this morning its proposed merger with Vodaphone's NZ business has been rejected by the competition regulator.
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The Aussie dollar pushed above 0.77 US cents overnight and in keeping with overall target of US78c in the coming weeks. This strength coming from underlying support in the commodities market looks to be holding even as iron ore overnight consolidated at $US94.30/tonne.
Traders will be watching reports that Trumps phenomenal tax plans may benefit Rio Tinto and BHP, both stocks have been upgraded to a buy from a hold by many analysts. With the 60 per cent rise in iron ore since last September these two companies have significant potential to continue the already established primary up trend with the broader commodities markets providing strength.
Casino giant Crown Resorts has reported a 9.1 per cent fall in "normalised" net profit to $191.3 million, pulled down by a 45.3 per cent drop in Australian VIP revenue following the arrest of 18 Crown staff by Chinese officials.
Crown will pay a special dividend of 83¢ following the sale of part of its stake in Macau-focused Melco Entertainment.
However the company announced it had changed its dividend policy and will now pay 60¢ a year, subject to its financial performance. Last year the company's full year dividend was 72.5¢.
The company will pay an interim dividend of 30¢, compared to last year's interim payout of 33¢.
Net profit was $359.1 million for the six months to December 31, up 75 per cent, boosted by the sales of stakes in resorts in Macau and Las Vegas.
Listed real estate group McGrath has reported a 72 per cent dive in half-year pro-forma profit to $2.4 million, blaming challenging market conditions and low listings and sales, consistent with a warning issued last month.
Statutory net profit for the company, which listed in December 2015, was up from $400,000 to $2.7 million for the six months to December 31, while pro-forma revenue fell 11 per cent to $66.9 million.
McGrath declared a fully franked dividend of 1¢ a share.
The high-profile agency last month warned that "unprecedented low volumes of listings" it highlighted at November's annual shareholder meeting had shown no sign of improving and said analysts' estimates of its full-year profit outlook were too optimistic.
Bell Potter and JPMorgan were joint lead managers of McGrath's float, which had an offer price of $2.10.
However, the stock never reached those heights, peaking at $1.89 in the days after it listed. Following an earnings downgrade by the company in April due to falling home sale listings, the share price plunged 30 per cent in one day to 90¢.
Bell Potter said in December it was still unclear if and when a rebound would occur and if some structural reform was required, such as lower stamp duty.
"We now forecast 2017 earnings ... [EBITDA] of $20.9 million," the broker said.
The cuts to profit forecasts came a week after McGrath held its maiden annual shareholder meeting in November, where chairwoman Cass O'Connor said the market in Sydney was very poor.
"It was as though every vendor woke up in the new year and made a resolution not to sell," she said.
In August, John McGrath, dubbed "Mr Sydney Real Estate", stepped down as chief executive of the group he founded in 1988. He is now an executive director with Cameron Judson, the new chief executive.
Over the course of its first year as a listed group, the company has lost a number of its high-profile agents, although the McGrath Equity Incentive Plan, is aimed at attracting and hold the real estate talent needed to grow the business.
European bond markets and the euro have been shaken up by polls showing the French presidential race is tightening.
The gap between short-dated German and US government bond yields stood at its widest in nearly 17 years overnight as the former fell to record lows and the latter nudged up in anticipation of rate increase signals.
German two-year yields dropped to minus 0.92 per cent, pulling the country's 10-year yields to a five-week low of 0.24 per cent. Analysts said jitters around upcoming French elections have stoked demand for an asset seen as one of the safest in the eurozone.
"It all seems to be linked with the French political woes," said Aberdeen Asset Management manager Patrick O'Donnell, who described the sense of an "internal FX trade" in Europe and the haven status of German assets.
"The [German] front end is the safest place to be," he added. "If redenomination risk were to reappear, then the short-dated maturities of France and Spain would be the ones that would come under pressure."
Bottlenecks caused by the European Central Bank's bond-buying program and upcoming regulatory changes have amplified the decline in the yields, which move inversely to prices.
US two-year yields have meanwhile been sneaking higher in recent days, reaching 1.24 per cent - within sight of a seven-year high breached at the end of 2016 - as investors start to price in an outside chance the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next month.
The US yield reached some 212 basis points above its German equivalent, the biggest gap since early 2000.
Meanwhile, the euro fell below $US1.05 for the first time in six weeks, hit by a combination of concern over France's presidential election campaign and the growing gap between core eurozone interest rates and the US equivalents.
"Everybody has learned lessons from last year's big surprises. People probably don't want to take big risks. The euro could face further pressure given there's still time before the election," said Ayako Sera, market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.
The first round of the French Presidential election is scheduled on April 23, with the run-off between the top two contenders on May 7. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has vowed to take France out of the eurozone, is leading the polls for the first round, but is still lagging in second-round polls.
French bonds meanwhile received a boost from the latest twists in the presidential race.
Centrist Francois Bayrou said overnight he was offering an alliance with independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, a move that could give the former investment banker a much-needed boost to reach the runoff in May's presidential vote.
The news helped ease concerns about the strong showing of far-right, eurosceptic Marine Le Pen, who is expected to make it through to the second round.
France's 10-year bond yield was down 7 basis points in late trade at 1.01 per cent, narrowing the gap over German peers to 74 bps. The French/German yield spread had widened to around 84 bps earlier this week - its widest since late 2012.
"Paranoid fears about the outcome of the French election continue to grow, with the recent price action suggesting some panic flight to quality," said Societe Generale global strategist Kit Juckes.
Ramsay Health Care boss Chris Rex will step down from the nation's largest private hospitals operator after 22 years with the company.
Mr Rex flagged his retirement while delivering an upgrade to full-year earnings guidance, and now expects 12 per cent to 14 per cent core net profit and core earnings per share growth from 10 per cent to 12 per cent previously for the 2017 fiscal year.
"It has been a fantastic 22 years, nine as CEO, and I want to leave while I'm energetic and give someone the opportunity to take the company forward for the next exciting stage of growth," Mr Rex told The AFR.
A search is under way being lead by chairman Michael Siddle, who is using an external search firm to help find a new head. Mr Rex will stay on "as long as it takes" to find a replacement. It is believed both internal and external candidates are being considered.
Under Mr Rex's tenure the company's value has grown from $1.8 billion to nearly $14.5 billion.
Mr Rex flagged his retirement as Ramsay on posted group half year results, where revenue was up 3.5 per cent to $4.3 billion, while net profit climbed 13.8 per cent to $255.9 million.
Australian hospitals and pharmacy revenue grew 8.8 per cent $2.4 billion. Australian EBIT climbed a strong 15 per cent $348.1 million.
The Dow notched up a ninth consecutive all-time high but the S&P 500 ended modestly weaker, holding losses after minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting kept alive a potential near-term interest rate hike.
The major US indexes are all trading around record highs, driven up since President Donald Trump's November 8 election by the promise of lower taxes, reduced regulations and higher infrastructure spending.
Many Fed policymakers said it may be appropriate to raise rates again "fairly soon" should jobs and inflation data come in line with expectations, according to Fed minutes.
Recent comments by Yellen and other Fed officials appear to suggest the Fed could raise rates at its March meeting, but the "market is not there", said Walter Todd, chief investment officer with Greenwood Capital.
"I don't see anything in the minutes that changed that narrative," Todd said. The Fed "is trying to give itself maximum flexibility to move and the market is kind of stubbornly saying 'You're not going in March'."
The S&P 500 lost 2.56 points, or 0.11 per cent, to 2,362.82 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.32 points, or 0.09 per cent, to 5,860.63. The S&P energy sector fell 1.6 percent as oil prices dropped.
"It's just a little breather," said Chuck Carlson, chief executive at Horizon Investment Services. "You are coming off a really strong period for stocks so to have a little bit of a respite today is not unusual."
"Trump is bad for Tech" they wrote after the post-election decline.
— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) February 22, 2017
Today: Tech sector up 13 straight days, longest streak in history. $XLK pic.twitter.com/9k06ajMD5I
But the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 32.6 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 20,775.6. The Dow closed at an all-time high for a ninth straight session, the longest such streak since January 1987.
The Dow was buoyed by a 3.4-per cent gain in DuPont shares. The company is set to win antitrust approval from European Union regulators for its $US130 billion merger with Dow Chemical, sources told Reuters. Dow Chemical's shares rose 4 per cent.
A solid corporate earnings season has also encouraged investors. Profits for S&P 500 companies are on track to rise 7.6 per cent in the fourth quarter, the best quarterly growth since the third quarter of 2014.
And we are up, up and away with the morning's profit results.
First off the runway is Qantas Airways, which has reported a 7.5 per cent decline in first-half earnings, as expected, after a a surge in international competition drove down ticket prices but the airline says cost cuts and efficiency gains helped protect margins.
Qantas, which resumed paying dividends after posting a record profit last year, said said full-year underlying pretax earnings fell to $852 million from $921 million in the year-earlier period.
Net profit dropped to $515 million from the year-earlier $688 million - a plunge of 25 per cent - which was due to the gain on the sale of a terminal at Sydney airport in the prior year. It declared an interim dividend of 7¢.
The result beat the airline's October guidance for underlying pretax earnings of $800 million to $850 million this year but was below consensus analyst forecasts of $829.5 million, according to Bloomberg. JPMorgan was forecasting underlying net profit of $589.4 million.
All of Qantas's business units were profitable with the main challenge coming from the airline's international business after cheap fuel prices encouraged global airlines to add record capacity, driving down ticket prices. Qantas expects the 11 per cent international capacity growth experienced in the first-half to moderate in the second half to 6 to 7 per cent.
Qantas has some of the best margins of any airline in the region following a $2.1 billion transformation program under chief executive Alan Joyce, which saw the airline go from posting heavy losses two years ago.
Qantas said revenue per available seat kilometre (RASK), a measure combining the percentage of seats filled and average airfares, fell 5 per cent in the six months ended December 31. Net passenger revenue fell 3 per cent, primarily reflecting a $50 million reduction in the domestic resource market and continued international yield pressure.
Qantas did not give earnings guidance but the tone of the outlook was more upbeat than Virgin Australia, which reported a first-half loss last week, and said domestic demand remained subdued.
Qantas shares have climbed 8 per cent in the last two weeks on expectations of a strong result. The stock closed 2 per cent higher on Wednesday at $3.55.
Many Federal Reserve policymakers said it may be appropriate to raise interest rates again "fairly soon" should jobs and inflation data come in line with expectations, according to the minutes of the Fed's last policy meeting released earlier this morning.
The minutes of the January 31-February 1 discussion, at which the US central bank voted to keep rates unchanged, also showed the depth of uncertainty at the Fed because of a lack of clarity on the new Trump administration's economic program.
"Many participants expressed the view that it might be appropriate to raise the federal funds rate again fairly soon if incoming information on the labour market and inflation was in line with or stronger than their current expectations," the Fed said in the minutes.
Last week, Fed chair Janet Yellen said waiting too long to raise rates again would be "unwise" and gave a strong indication that the central bank remains on track to consider raising rates again by the summer.
Fed Governor Jerome Powell, one of the voting members at the central bank's last policy meeting, said on Wednesday a rate hike would be on the table at the Fed's next meeting in March.
Expectations on when the Fed will next raise rates were little changed, pricing in a roughly 35 per cent chance of a hike in March, with investors predicting a move in May at the earliest, according to fed fund futures data compiled by the CME Group.
Among voting members in general there was much less urgency to raise rates with many seeing only a "modest risk" that inflation would increase significantly and that the Fed would "likely have ample time" to respond if price pressures emerged.
In December, the Fed forecast it would raise rates three times in 2017 and so far robust readings on the economy have bolstered the confidence of many policymakers.
Set against that is the continued uncertainty over President Donald Trump's economic plans, with Fed policymakers awaiting details in order to assess how the policies would affect the economic outlook.
"They don't see a smoking gun for them to speed up" on rate increases, said Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist at PGIM Fixed Income. "There's way too much uncertainty about the content and timing on fiscal stimulus."
According to the minutes, "participants again emphasised their considerable uncertainty about the prospect for changes in fiscal and other government policies as well as about the timing and magnitude of the net effects of such changes."
The Fed has struggled to raise rates since the Great Recession after they were cut to near zero. A rate increase at its meeting last December was only the second hike since 2006.
Good morning and welcome to the Markets Live blog for Thursday.
Your editors today are Jens Meyer and Patrick Commins - please send any feedback on how we can improve this blog to jmeyer@fairfaxmedia.com.au or p.commins@fairfaxmedia.com.au
This blog is not intended as investment advice.
Fairfax Media with wires.
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