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Shares staged a broad recovery from Friday's steep sell-off, but investors thumbed their noses at JB Hi-Fi's bumper earnings and bought CBA shares after the bank's boss said he would retire.
The sharemarket's solid start to the week came as fears of a potential nuclear confrontation between the Unites States and North Korea cooled somewhat after sending stocks sharply lower on Friday. The S&P/ASX 200 index added 0.65 per cent per cent to 5730.4, with buying in the major banks driving the gains.
News that Commonwealth Bank boss Ian Narev would retire in 2018 in the wake of an anti-money laundering compliance scandal received a positive reaction from investors, with the stock climbing 1 per cent. Big Four peers NAB, ANZ and Westpac also climbed by more than 1 per cent.
Bendigo & Adelaide Bank surged 7.5 per cent after the regional lender reported annual profits. Analysts attributed the steep reaction to a "reasonable" result as due to short-covering.
Bank of Queensland was caught up in the updraft, adding 3.2 per cent.
For the past three months the benchmark measure has ping-ponged in a rough 100-point range between 5700 and 5800 points, and remains broadly in 2017. Hopes that August reporting season would drive some upward momentum on the ASX has so far been disappointed.
Around 16 per cent of the top 200 ASX-listed companies have reported so far, with around 76 of results meeting expectations, 16 per cent coming in ahead and 8 per cent below, on Citi numbers.
"Of the stocks reported so far, we have seen sales broadly in-line, while earnings per share missed by 5 per cent on average," Citi director of equity sales Karen Jorritsma said.
There were more misses than hits from earnings releases today, at least in terms of sharemarket reactions, ahead of a hectic two weeks of corporate profit releases.
JB Hi-Fi slumped 3.8 per cent after revealing bumper annual profit numbers that nonetheless fell short of the market's high expectations. Ansell dropped 3.1 per cent after releasing profit figures which also came in below consensus forecasts.
The resilience of financial markets in the face of North Korea's troubling nuclear assertions shows just how exasperated investors are with constant geopolitical risk, says JP Morgan.
Incendiary comments from both US President Donald Trump and dramatic posturing by North Korea saw a mild spike in volatility gauges last week and safe haven trades like the US dollar, the yen and gold bullion picked up.
But equities have largely held their ground and even oil markets, generally very susceptible to the prospect of conflict, have traded within a tight band.
The lack of meaningful movement is unusual compared with historical market reactions to the threat of open warfare, says John Normand, the head of FX, commodities and international rates research at JP Morgan.
"Short-term market reactions to geopolitical stress can be huge, even if retracements occur within a few weeks or months," says Normand in a note to clients.
Cutting the data around equity, commodity, bond and currency movements surrounding major geopolitical events since World War II (starting with the Korean War and ending with Brexit) Normand says volatility generally jumps "materially" for all asset classes.
Following the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, equities plunged between 5-8 per cent, though in other cases investors were largely unperturbed and there was little reaction.
The good news? Nuclear brinkmanship appears to have the shortest impact on markets. The bad news? It's still nuclear brinkmanship. pic.twitter.com/gtTC6zRzpC
— Tracy Alloway (@tracyalloway) August 14, 2017
On average, bond yields have tended to slide 10 basis points in the month leading up to the geopolitical event and drop 5 points in the month following it.
And commodities are usually the main indicators of distress, jumping an average of 5 per cent in the weeks leading up to a geopolitical episode.
Normand says the main takeaway is that geopolitics drives volatility rather than investing trends themselves, but "then the most unusual development this week may be the relative market calm amidst apparently high anxiety," he writes.
"Maybe market participants realise that North Korea has generated many false alarms over the past decade, so are reflexively reaching for the snooze button," he writes.
Shares in REA Group have staged a rapid turnaround, bouncing 3 per cent to $66.25 after shedding 6 per cent on Friday following its earnings update.
While investors were busy offloading the stock last week, no fewer than three brokers were busy upgrading it.
Underlying profit growth for the online real estate classifieds over the 2017 financial year rose 12 per cent - lower than the market had expected. But Morgans analyst Ivor Ries was unfussed.
"Regardless of what happens elsewhere in the REA group, in our view you can take another year of double-digit earnings growth to the bank," Ries said, upgrading the shares to "add" from "hold", with an only marginally higher 12-month share price target of $68.75.
UBS analysts said the valuation for the stock was "more palatable" after Friday's share price falls and upgraded their recommendation to "hold" from "add". They noted that REA had delivered "a strong result" that ran foul of "inflated" market expectations.
Finally, Credit Suisse analysts said REA's growth profile "looks strong" into FY19 thanks to an increasing contribution from financial services and an improved contribution from offshore operations. They raised the stock to "outperform" from "neutral".
The shares' P/E of 28.4 expected FY18 earnings falls to 23.5 on expected FY19 earnings, the Credit Suisse team said, adding they don't see this ratio as expensive given the company's development profile. The broker's 12-month share price target was raised to $72 from $65.
REA Group shares hit an all-time closing high of just shy of $70 at the beginning of this month and are up 20 per cent in 2017.
Chinese iron ore futures have dropped 2.3 per cent, adding to the previous session's steep losses, as steel prices extend declines after the Shanghai exchange increased transaction fees to fight speculative trading.
The higher fees followed a rally in rebar futures last week to their highest since 2013 amid strong volumes, which the China Iron and Steel Association said was largely driven by speculative investors.
Iron ore has largely tracked the movement in steel prices, dropping nearly 5 per cent on Friday as rebar steel futures fell 2.7 per cent just before the Shanghai Futures Exchange hiked fees.
The bourse also said it would limit intraday positions for non-member firms and clients on rebar futures contracts for delivery in October and January from August 15.
ANZ senior commodity strategist Daniel Hynes said news of increased trading charges on the Shanghai Futures Exchange "weighed on investor appetite".
The drop in prices of the steelmaking raw material came despite a fall in iron ore stockpiles at China's ports last week.
Iron ore inventory at China's major ports stood at 137 million tonnes on Friday, down 2.15 million tonnes from the prior week, according to data tracked by SteelHome consultancy.
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China's currency keeps on strengthening: the central bank today raised the official yuan midpoint for the fifth session in a row to 6.6601 per US dollar, the strongest since September 22, 2016, reflecting broad weakness in the greenback in global markets.
The Chinese currency recorded the best weekly performance since July 2015 last week, gaining 0.94 per cent against the greenback and 1.26 per cent on a trade-weighted basis against a basket of currencies of its trading partners.
"It shows that the recent rally in the yuan could also be attributable to changing sentiment in the onshore market in addition to a weak dollar," said Tommy Xie, economist at OCBC Bank in Singapore.
Everyone knows there's a big difference between banks' advertised mortgage rates and what they actually charge when nudged.
Now we finally have some hard data on how big the gap is, as well as how much monetary policy has been quietly tightened even while the average owner-occupier has enjoyed a small rate cut.
Along the way, there's a reminder of the "lazy tax" most borrowers pay – the difference between the rate paid and the cheapest available – and how effective the regulators have been in penalising investors and interest-only loans.
A speech by Reserve Bank assistant governor Christopher Kent on Monday with the catchy title Some Innovative Mortgage Data uses the mortgage detail required for securitisation to give the first honest picture of home loans.
Never mind the average advertised owner-occupier, variable principle-and-interest (P&I) indicator rate of about 5.2 per cent, the average for such loans is a smidge under 4.4 per cent – a discount of 80 points.
The discount for investor, variable P&I loans is larger. The advertised indicator rate is nearly 5.8 per cent – the average rate being paid is just under 4.8 per cent.
And it's larger again for the interest-only loans that have attracted the ire of regulators. The average discount is about 120 points for owner-occupiers and 140 for investors.
Which might well make you wonder why the banks bother with misleading advertising while playing a game of nudge-nudge, wink-wink with customers over available discounts.
Outgoing Commonwealth Bank boss Ian Narev has presided over a market-topping stock price since he took over at the start of December 2011.
During his more than 5-1/2 year tenure, CBA's share price rose 66 per cent, beating the sector and trouncing the 35 per cent gain for the S&P/ASX 200 index over that period.
Including reinvested dividends, CBA has the biggest total return of any of the big four banks during this period: 152 per cent.
Record-breaking inflows into exchange traded funds this year are fuelling fears that the tide of money surging into passive investment is helping to inflate a bubble in the US stock market.
Demand for ETFs has accelerated sharply this year, as a growing number of investors move into low-cost funds that track an index, and out of traditional actively managed funds in protest at inconsistent performance and high fees.
Investors have ploughed $US391 billion into ETFs in the first seven months of 2017, already surpassing last year's record annual inflow of $US390 billion, according to ETFGI, a London-based consultancy.The ETF industry has attracted almost $US2.8 trillion in new business since the start of 2008, coinciding with one of the longest bull runs in US stock market history.
The US benchmark S&P 500 index hit an all-time high on August 8, up 267 per cent since its post financial-crisis low in March 2009. The rise of ETFs has prompted a growing chorus of criticism from some of the world's most influential money managers, who complain about the effect of passive funds on asset prices and the potential for a liquidity squeeze in times of market stress.
"When the management of assets is on autopilot, as it is with ETFs, then investment trends can go to great excess," said Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital. He cautioned that ETFs' promise of ample liquidity has yet to be tested in a major bear market.
"It is not clear where ETFs and index mutual funds will find buyers for their holdings if they have to sell in a crunch," said Marks.
Paul Singer, the chief executive of Elliott, the $US33 billion US hedge fund manager, sharply criticised ETFs in a letter sent to investors in late July.
Demand for passive funds has been supercharged by governments' manipulation of asset prices. This has "created the illusion that simply holding stocks and bonds in their index weights and sitting back, arms folded, is the perfect investment strategy", said Singer.
He added: "What may have been a clever idea in its infancy has grown into a blob which is destructive to the growth-creating prospects of free-market capitalism."
RBA assistant governor Christopher Kent has warned that the relatively high use of offset accounts by interest-only mortgage borrowers shouldn't be cause for complacency over a key part of the financial system.
Releasing a raft of new data on the nation's mortgage market derived from around $400 billion of securitised mortgages - accounting for about a quarter of the total value of home loans, Dr Kent said many borrowers with high loan-to-valuation ratios may have limited repayment buffers.
Many analysts have downplayed the financial risks posed by interest-only borrowers - who have been specifically targeted by regulators this year over concerns they are fuelling a house price bubble in Sydney and Melbourne - by pointing to relatively large offset balances.
Dr Kent, who heads the Reserve Bank's financial stability department, said the use of offset accounts, which have surged rapidly over recent years, suggests interest-only borrowers are behaving similar to those with more traditional principal-and-interest loans.
"That is, many of those borrowers have built up significant balances in offset accounts," Dr Kent told a function hosted by Moody's in Sydney on Monday.
"If needed in times of financial stress - such as a period of unemployment - borrowers could use those balances to service their mortgages."
However, Dr Kent was at pains to emphasise that this was not cause for complacency.
"I would caution against any suggestion that this similarity regarding the build-up of financial buffers means that the tightening of lending standards for interest-only loans was not warranted – far from it," he said.
"What matters when it comes to financial stability is not what the average borrowers are doing, but what the more marginal borrowers are doing."
A large number of investors still have a noticeable share of loans with current LVRs of between 75 and 80 per cent, even when offset balances are included, Dr Kent said.
"And for both investor and owner-occupier loans, adjusting for offset balances leads to only a small change in the share of loans with current LVRs greater than 80 per cent.
"This suggests that borrowers with high current LVRs have limited repayment buffers."
While fund managers will be in the thick of annual and half-yearly results for the next fortnight, they're also keeping one eye on potential sharemarket index changes.
Standard & Poor's next quarterly review is due on September 1, with changes effective as of close of business on September 15.
Macquarie analysts came out with their predictions on Monday morning, tipping no changes in either of the ASX 20 or ASX 50, but one change in the top 100.
The analysts reckon Charter Hall Group will enter the top-100 in place of Primary Health Care, while A2 Milk and NIB Holdings were also contenders for a berth.
It is tipping the most changes to occur in the top-300, with four spots up for grabs.
The analysts reckon recently listed Bingo Industries, furniture retailer Nick Scali, recently merged Afterpay Touch Group and Xero are the strongest contenders, ahead of Cooper Energy, Clean Teq Holdings and Appen.
China's factory output grew 6.4 per cent in July from a year earlier, while fixed-asset investment expanded 8.3 per cent in the first seven months, both below economists' forecasts.
The data has blunted some minor gains in the Aussie dollar, which is back above 79 US cents - so no major blowback.
Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted factory output growth of 7.2 per cent in July, easing from 7.6 per cent in June.
Fixed-asset investment had been forecast to grow 8.6 per cent over the first seven months, the same pace as in January-June.
Retail sales rose 10.4 per cent in July from a year earlier, cooling from June's 11 per cent pace and also failing to meet analysts' expectations for a 10.8 per cent rise.
Growth of private investment slowed to 6.9 per cent in January-July from 7.2 per cent in the first half of the year, suggesting small and medium-sized private firms still face challenges in accessing financing.
Private investment accounts for about 60 per cent of overall investment in China.
..China data suggests credit tightening impacting, but allowing for normal vol & solid PMIs growth likely only slowing to ~6.5% grth target
— Shane Oliver (@ShaneOliverAMP) August 14, 2017
China is targeting growth of around 9 per cent in fixed asset investment for 2017, and expects retail sales to increase about 10 per cent.
Real estate investment in China rose 7.9 per cent in January-July period from the same period a year earlier, easing from 8.5 per cent growth in the first half of 2017, the official data showed.
New construction starts measured by floor area were up 8 per cent in January-July, compared with a 10.6 per cent rise in the first six months this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.
Property sales measured by floor area grew 14 per cent in January-July from the same period a year earlier, down from 16.1 per cent in the first six months of the year.
Real estate investment, which directly affects 40 other business sectors in China, is considered a crucial driver for the economy. But some analysts expect increasingly stringent cooling measures will eventually drag on investment and dampen construction activity.
China is targeting annual economic growth of around 6.5 per cent this year, down from the 6.7 per cent pace clocked in 2016.
Economists say Beijing will handily meet its 2017 growth target after stronger-than-expected growth of 6.9 per cent in the first half of the year.
But most China watchers expect activity will slow slightly in coming months due to higher financing costs and government measures to cool the country's heated property market.
VGI Partners, the Sydney and New York-based fund manager, has a reputation for picking the market's winners and losers. In its nine-year history, the fund has never had a larger share of short positions than it does now.
Rob Luciano, founder of the $1.1 billion fund, says high market valuations, complacency among investors combined with the rise of "winner takes all" companies has created abundant opportunities for short sellers.
VGI had a concentrated portfolio of mainly global stocks. It has stakes in Amazon, Mastercard, Chicago exchange CME, online real-estate site Zillow, WD-40 and the Boston Beer Company.
VGI also has a large holding in ASX-listed Medibank.
One of VGI's larger holdings is Amazon, which has had a spectacular run as the market has switched its focus from its minuscule profits to its relentless and destructive quest for retail domination.
Amazon is a "multi-decade compounder" that is heading to $US2000 a share but Luciano says the ride will be wild.
"There will be some profound volatility in the share price in the years ahead," he says.
"It has no dividend yield, it's incorrectly perceived to be on an 'infinity multiple' and as a consequence it will be hit with bouts of panic.
Given VGI's short selling prowess, have they joined in betting on the demise of retailers at the hands of Amazon?
You bet. The fund has shorted a basket of local and international retailers.
"A great teaching of Charlie Munger is to invert, which we have done in the case of Amazon."
Luciano is sticking to his comments made earlier this year to the Financial Review that "winter is coming" for Australia's retailers as Amazon arrives.
"The beachhead has been taken and the tanks are rolling in. Just because they're a long distance away it doesn't mean they're not coming. They are here and it's going to profoundly change the Australian retail environment."
CBA may lose the traditional higher valuation premium it has over the other big banks, while Rio Tinto is shaping as a better bet than BHP, says the boss of $5.4 billion Argo Investments.
Jason Beddow, the managing director of Argo, which this morning lifted its final dividend to deliver a fifth consecutive year of higher annual dividends, said it was possible the CBA premium may slowly disappear as it faces a grinding period of trying to improve its systems and culture.
"Does it deserve to trade on a premium compared with the others, maybe not," Mr Beddow said.
"Maybe it should trade back with the pack," he said. "Clearly CBA's been responsible for some of the bigger issues that have had banks in the spotlight for the wrong reasons".
CBA traditionally trades on a higher multiple than the other big three banks - ANZ, NAB and Westpac - because it has produced strong profit growth over an extended period, with its core home lending business a major driver.
CBA is facing hefty costs in investment as it streamlines its systems and tries to improve its culture as big investors increasingly consider corporate reputation in their investment decisions, Mr Beddow said.
The CBA announced on Monday that chief executive Ian Narev will exit by June, 2018. The CBA's core operations of home lending was still an impressive money-making machine however.
Mr Beddow predicted all four big banks would probably trade sideways for the next six to 12 months or so, with interest rates likely to stay steady and bad debts around the same levels.
"Banks are probably not going to do a lot in the next little while," he said. Westpac represents 6.6 per cent of Argo's share portfolio, ANZ is at 5.4 per cent, and CBA is the third largest holding at 5.0 per cent.
Mr Beddow said if there was a slippage in China's economic performance, Rio Tinto and BHP wouldn't be hit as hard this time around because both of their balance sheets were in strong positions and they were generating strong cash flows.
But even if global growth continued to rise and demand for commodities improved further, Rio was the better option in that scenario too. "Rio is in a stronger position if you look at the metrics," he said. Asset sales were bolstering the balance sheet further.
"They've got a few more options as to what they can do," Mr Beddow said.
For North Korea's fledgling economy, the latest round of sanctions will cut deep.
The curbs on everything from lead and fish exports to shady North Korean companies coincide with a deadly drought that's ruining crops, darkening an already dire humanitarian picture. An estimated 40 percent of the population is already under nourished and two-thirds are reliant on food aid, according to estimates by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Food Programme.
Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit in Singapore, expects a "severe recession" this year as sanctions crimp the mining and manufacturing industries, which together make up 33 percent of North Korea's output.
But for all the humanitarian and economic pain, the new measures aren't likely to deter Kim Jong Un from his ambition of developing an arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles. That's because Kim, who's banking on military power to survive, has a web of illicit channels to skirt sanctions and the new curbs leave out the vital ingredient of oil.
"North Korea's dependency on Chinese fuel is China's choke hold on Pyongyang," said Dennis Wilder, former senior director for Asia at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration. "If this goes, the North Korean air force can't fly jets and their electricity system can't function."
Even after North Korea last year had its quickest expansion since 1999, its per-capita gross national income is meager at around $US1300.
The nation's total trade value was $US6.55 billion in 2016, up 4.7 per cent from the previous year, according to the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency in Seoul. Trade with China accounted for about 93 per cent of the total.
While China in February banned coal imports from North Korea, analysts say the effectiveness of this and the latest sanctions depends on total trade and how rigorously Beijing implements the new curbs. The so-called Hermit Kingdom purchased $US935 million worth of exports from China in the three months through June, 17 percent more than in the same period a year earlier, Chinese official data shows.
The pain in the retail industry has also spread to pharmacists, with Sigma Healthcare and Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (API) warning on profits this month.
Both stocks are down about 30 per cent this year. Aside from sour consumer sentiment, the companies are facing increased competition in the retail segment from Clifford Hallam Healthcare, according to UBS analyst Andrew Goodsall.
Chinese property buyers are turning away from Australian housing as efforts by regulators in both countries to slow investment begin to bite.
Chinese buyers, who make up about 80 per cent of all foreign property purchases in Australia, have grown wary after being hit by Beijing's tightened capital controls, local banks restricting lending and growing fears of an over-supply in the capital city apartment market.
The drop-off in Chinese demand for Australian property marks a noticeable shift from just a year ago when buyers from the mainland were seen to be dominating apartment purchases in many inner city suburbs.
"It was just 12 months ago that Australia was the hottest thing at Chinese property exhibitions," said Scott Kirchner, a Shanghai-based director of Beller Group, a real estate agency.
"Now Australian developers are not up here pushing projects and Chinese agents have no appetite for Australian property."
That downbeat assessment is mirrored by figures released from Chinese-language property portal Juwai.com, which showed searches on Australian property were down one-third in the first half of the year, compared to the second half of last year.
Jane Lu, the portal's Australian head, said new property taxes, restrictions from Australian banks lending to foreign buyers and tighter Chinese capital controls had all played a part.
In an effort to keep the Chinese yuan from depreciating sharply, Beijing has progressively tightened oversight around individuals and companies moving money offshore following record capital outflows last year.
"They could probably find a way around the capital controls but at the moment buyers are not inclined to for Australian property," Mr Kirchner said.
Ms Lu from Juwai said Chinese purchases in Australia could be down between 10 and 30 per cent this year.
But she stressed this should be seen in the context of a record 2016 for Chinese buyers in Australia. Even if Chinese buyers dropped by a third in 2017, she said, it still could be the second best year on record.
"Australia is still secure in its position as the second-most popular country for Chinese buyers.
"When you compare the price of similar property in Australia and China, Australia still offers good value. It looks cheap to them," Ms Lu said.
"But they feel that the Australian governments don't want them here."
Japan's economy grew in the second quarter at the fastest pace in more than two years as consumer spending and capital expenditure both rose at the fastest in more than three years, highlighting stronger domestic demand.
Gross domestic product expanded an annualised 4.0 per cent in April-June, government data showed, more than the median estimate for 2.5 per cent annualised growth and the biggest increase since January-March 2015.
Compared to the previous quarter, the economy expanded 1.0 per cent, versus the median estimate for 0.6 percent growth.
Economic growth is expected to continue in coming quarters, offering the Bank of Japan (BoJ) the hope that a tight labour market is finally starting to boost consumer spending, which in turn makes it easier to generate sustained inflation.
The economy grew for six straight quarters in April-June. The last time the economy had a run of six consecutive quarters of growth was January-March 2005 through April-June 2006.
Abenomics: overhyped, underappreciated pic.twitter.com/IkVQ1B9Li4
— Simon Cox (@s1moncox) August 14, 2017
Private consumption, which accounts for about two-thirds of GDP, rose 0.9 per cent from the previous quarter, more than the median estimate of 0.5 per cent growth.
That marked the fastest expansion in more than three years as shoppers splashed out on durable goods, an encouraging sign that consumer spending is no longer the weak spot in Japan's economic outlook.
Capital expenditure jumped by 2.4 per cent in April-June from the previous quarter, versus the median estimate for a 1.2 per cent increase. That was the fastest growth in business investment since January-March 2014.
External demand subtracted 0.3 percentage point from GDP growth in April-June in part due to an increase in imports. This is notable because Japan usually relies on exports to drive growth.
Since launching quantitative easing in April 2013, the BoJ has pushed back the timing for reaching its 2 per cent inflation target six times in part due to weak consumer spending.
The ASX is pushing higher in early trade, recovering from Friday's steep sell-off amid some mixed reactions to this mornings profit releases.
The top 200 index is up 19 points or 0.3 per cent at 5712, with all sectors in the green.
CBA is leading gains in the big banks, up 0.6 per cent as news of the retirement of boss Ian Narev came out. NAB and Westpac are up around 0.3 per cent, while ANZ has inched higher.
Among the well received earnings updates from this morning are Aurizon, which is up 1.5 per cent, and Bendigo & Adelaide Bank, which has added 2.1 per cent. Ooh Media has jumped 5.5 per cent in its numbers.
On the other side of the ledger are Newcrest Mining, down 0.9 per cent following its profits report, while Ansell is off 2.6 per cent (as mentioned below) and JB Hi-Fi is down 2.1 per cent.
One of the best performers this morning is REA Group, which has bounced 4.3 per cent on a string of analyst upgrades following Friday's profits release and subsequent sell-off.
Just quickly before we look at the market open, rubber products maker Ansell says it can boost earnings by as much as 22 per cent this year, after delivering an annual profit just under analysts expectations.
Ansell said its full-year net profit fell 7.2 per cent to $US147.7 million ($187.6 million). Revenue rose 1.7 per cent to $US1.6 billion.
Morgan Stanley had expected earnings of $US154.9 million and revenue of $US1.6 billion.
Ansell announced the sale of its famous condom business in May, for $US600 million. It also launched a share buyback on the same day.
Chief executive Magnus Nicolin highlighted 3.6 per cent "organic revenue growth" which he said was " at the upper end of our targeted range and we finished the year with strong momentum".
The company said earnings per share from continuing business for the 2018 financial year is expected to be US91¢ to US101¢, excluding. This would represent a 10 per cent to to 22 per cent improvement on prior year for continuing operations.
Investors don't love the result, with the stock off 2.6 per cent at $20.99.
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