The local sharemarket managed to shrug off another sell-off on Wall Street overnight, after the ASX 200 edged 0.41 per cent or 26.8 points higher, to 6496.2. Six sectors and roughly 53 per cent of stocks in the ASX 200 lost ground. The Financials sector (down 0.3 per cent) edged lower for the fourth straight day. The Mining sector lifted by 2.6 per cent, helped largely by an 5.5 per cent, 6.1 per cent and 6.8 per cent rally in Fortescue Metals (FMG), New Hope
Corporation (NHC) and Whitehaven Coal (WHC). Oil producers Woodside Petroleum (WDS) & Santos (STO) rebounded and rose by at least 1 per cent, contributing to the broader Energy sector’s 1.7 per cent gain.
In company news, Star Entertainment Group (SGR) rose (by 1.1 per cent) for the first time in over a week after it
responded to the NSW Independent Casino Commission’s (NICC) notice with a remediation plan. SGR says it has
‘acted with urgency’ and has hired 53 consultants, ‘approved an uplift in security staff’ and will be adding ‘15 facialrecognition cameras’ to ‘prevent entry of excluded persons to the casino’. This comes after final report in connection with the review of SGR Sydney was made public by the NICC on September 13.
Synlait Milk (SM1) fell by 4.4 per cent after it released its annual results this morning. The New Zealand-based dairy
processing company posted a 21 per cent growth in its revenues, and more than tripled its profits. SM1 also said that its final average base milk price for FY22 was $9.30 per KgMS – the most it has ever paid. It expects the average base milk price it pays to rise by 2.2 per cent over FY23.
Santos (STO) has advised that it has received an offer from Kumul Petroleum Holdings to acquire a 5 per cent project interest in PNG LNG for asset value of US$1.4 billion. Kumul has paid STO US$55 million to secure the offer, which will remain open for acceptance until 31 December 2022. Shares of Santos added 1 per cent.
Woolworths (WOW) has paid out its 53 cents-per-share final dividend to eligible shareholders today. The retailer’s
gross distribution amounted to approximately $640 million. Rival Coles (COL) will distribute its dividend on Wednesday, ahead of Commonwealth Bank (CBA) & Fortescue Metal’s (FMG) dividend payment on Thursday.
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Today, 3.4bn shares were traded, worth $7.8bn. 691 stocks rose, 703 fell & 385 finished unchanged.
Originally published by Divik Nigam – (Author), CommSec
