Australia…1 hour in… ASX200 up 20

By Scott Phillips | More Articles by Scott Phillips

ASX200 up 20 points (0.3%) to 7088.

 

  • Amcor (+2.5%); earnings upgrade — has raised its EPS growth rate to 14-15%.
  • ANZ (-2.2%); 1H profit $2.94Bn, up 90% and 10-15% above expectations.   Div 70c vs 25c yoy.   Conference call on as I write. Sure to be plenty of research out soon…….
  • Ardent Leisure (-0.5%); announced a development of Dreamworld.
  • Bank of Qld (-1.8%); ex div 17c.  Trading down 17c.
  • CSL (+2.5%); upgraded to a Buy this morning by Macquarie.  CSL is presenting at the Macq conference today……….
  • Hawkstone (-2.5%); commences trading on the US-based OTCQB market.
  • Incitec Pivot (+0.6%); has penned a 20-year deal to buy granular urea fertilizer from Perdaman Chemicals and Fertilisers proposed new plant in Western Australia.
  • National Aust Bank (+0.5%); 1H result due tomorrow.
  • PointsBet (-0.7%); has commenced iGaming operations in Michigan.
  • Temple & Webster (-3.5%); said revenue growth at the start of 4Q was up 20% on its strongest sales month of the pandemic-accelerated 2020.
  • Westpac (+0.2%); has acknowledged ASIC’s filing of civil proceedings relating to Insider Trading allegations during 2016 Ausgrid privatisation.   More to come………
  • Other companies presenting at Macquarie conference today include; Bapcor  Healius  IDP Education  Medibank Private  Nick Scali   Santos

 

…..and Berkshire Hathaway is trading at more than $421,000 per Class A share, and that’s a problem.   The price has grown so high that Nasdaq temporarily suspended trading last night as it has nearly hit the maximum number that can be stored in one common way exchange computers handle digits.     The biggest number they can handle is $429,496.7295. Nasdaq is rushing to finish an upgrade later this month that would fix the problem.

For the tech nerds — Nasdaq record stock prices in a compact computer format that uses 32 bits, or ones and zeros. The biggest number possible is two to the 32nd power minus one, or 4,294,967,295. Stock prices are frequently stored using four decimal places, so the highest possible price is $429,496.7295.     Clear?!

About Scott Phillips

Scott has over 35 years experience in Australian equities, starting as a “chalkie” and trader on the Stock Exchange Trading Floor and spending the last 25 years advising and trading for International Institutions. He has been an Executive Director at JPMorgan and Nomura, a Governor of the Australian Stock Exchange and was recently awarded a Lifetime Achievment award by the Australian Stockbrokers Association.

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