Latest News After experiencing its best daily performance in more than 2 years and closing at four month highs, the Aussie market was easing slightly with the ASX 200 pulling back in early trade. The index has improved to be off its lows at lunch, and now back in positive territory, trading 15 points or 0.25% higher to 6020 points. Supporting the market is improvements for materials, telcos and industrials. Major miners BHP, Rio Tinto (RIO) and Fortescue (FMG) are all lifting between 0.4% and 1.2%, with BHP leading the gains. Telstra (TLS) is advancing 1.4% and Sydney Airport (SYD) is up 4%. Airlines, Qantas (QAN) and Virgin Australia (VAH) are also both higher with VAH up 5.4% after announcing Paul Scurrah as its new CEO. Leading the losses are financials, following the strong bounce on the back of the royal commission’s final report being released late Monday afternoon. The big four banks are all down between 1.4-2% after climbing in the range of 3.9-7.3% yesterday. Australia’s largest lender, the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) is down 2% after being the first of the banks to release its half yearly results following the commission’s report. The cash net profit over the half lifted 1.7% to $4.7 billion once discontinued operations were stripped out. Net interest margins (NIM) fell by 4bps to 2.1%, impacted by higher funding costs and switching of more home loans from higher interest only loans to principal and interest loans. CBA is holding its dividend steady at $2 per share. Insurance Australia Group (IAG) is up 4.6% on the release of its 1H19 earnings. The result was impacted by higher regulatory costs and recent storms with NPAT lower by 9.3% on the previous year to $500 million but underlying performance was improved with the underlying insurance margin lifting 320bps to 16.2%. In other news, Coles (COL) and Viva Energy (VEA) have extended its fuel and convenience agreement until 2029. VEA shares are jumping 12% while Coles shares are 2.3% weaker. The Aussie dollar is hovering around 72.4 US cents ahead of a speech by RBA governor Phillip Lowe later today. So far, 0.8b units have been traded worth $2.4b with 543 stocks higher, 351 lower and 342 unchanged. Published by CommSec