Wednesday 19th December -Australian Market Wrap

Todays Highlights

ASX 200 down 9 to 5581
High 5589 Low 5555. Sector rotation continues.
Option expiry tomorrow. Big one.
Banks attract bargain hunters. NAB suffers record first strike.
Insurers under pressure.
Miners fight back at close as energy runs out of friends.
Gold producers enjoying strong support on safe-haven buying.
AUD firms to 71.95c
Bitcoin makes slight gains to $3744
Aussie Gold only marginally better at $1738.
US futures up 86
Asian markets mixed with Japan up 0.67% and China down 0.28%

STOCKS IN FOCUS

OGC +6.80% SBM +5.17% RRL +5.91% and GOR +3.39% safe-haven allure.
QAN +5.07% gaining on oil price falls.
SEK +1.03% refinances loan facility.
BGA -12.32% sours over profit downgrade.
TLS -1.03% admits it doesn’t know what 5G is for.
WOR -3.23% oil price falls.
ANZ +1.06% NAB +0.82% first strikes recorded. Could have been worse!
MYX -8.05% selling continues.
MPL +1.69% premium increases announced.
GPT -0.18% portfolio valuation.
NWH -14.44% trouble with mining services.
SWM -4.31% media stocks under pressure.
ALX -3.63% Euro woes.
SGF -4.36% CAR write down weighs.
EXL +3.45% best performing IPO this year.
MOC -7.62% FIL ceasing to be a substantial shareholder.
Speculative stock of the day: Phosphagenics (POH) +220.00% on decent volume after settling with Mylan on its arbitration case. No details were given. Mylan originally acquired the rights to TPM-daptomycin.
Biggest Risers – OGC, RRL, OMH, SBM, NST and QAN
Biggest Fallers – NWH, BGA, MYX, SYR, ASL and ORG

TODAY

National Australia Bank (NAB) +0.82% biggest shareholder revolt in corporate history of over 88% for its remuneration report at AGM. Many angry shareholders venting understandably today.
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) –0.91%Complete the disposal of the Tour Ariane office building to Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC for a net disposal price of €464.9m.
Bega Cheese (BGA) –12.32% Provides market update. Milk acquisition program has been successful. Overall milk intake in FY19 will be between 1.0bn and 1.1bn litres of milk, up from 750m litres in FY18. Normalised EBITDA expected to be in the range of $123 to $130m for FY2019, up from $109.6m in FY18. Current forecasts pointing to normalised profit after tax in the range of $44m-$48m. A more balanced H1 and H2 is expected in FY19 compared to FY18 thanks to the seasonal inventory build associated with the Koroit acquisition.
NIB Holding (NIB) –0.42% Receive approval from the Federal Minister for Health to increase insurance cover premiums on NIB health funds by an average of 3.38%. An average increase of 1.80% on GU Health insurance premiums has also been approved. The increased premiums will take effect from 1 April 2019.
Medibank Private (MPL) +1.69% Medibank and ahm health insurance premiums will increase by an average of 3.30% from April 1 2019. The rise is the lowest average increase in premiums in the last 18 years.
Kidman Resources (KDR) –7.20% Enter a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding containing commercial terms relating to the supply of 12kt lithium hydroxide p/a to LG Chem over the next 10 years.
GPT Group (GPT) –0.18% Give an update on the revaluations of the properties owned and managed by the group. The 31 December 2018 revaluations led to an increase of approximately $447.5m (equivalent to 25c per share), representing a 4.7% rise in NTA. The group’s Office (+3.9%), retail (+1.5%) and logistics (+7.3%) properties all saw a net increase in valuation.

ECONOMIC NEWS

APRA – has removed the 30% limit on interest-only lending and confirmed most banks have assured it lending standards will be maintained to allow the 10% growth cap on loans to property investors to also be removed, it said that both caps have “served their purpose”. In other words both APRA and the RBA (in recent minutes) are starting to get concerned about the unintended consequences of a quasi-credit crunch on housing prices.

BOND MARKETS