The Overnight Report: Rollout Rally

This story features BENDIGO & ADELAIDE BANK LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: BEN

The company is included in ASX100, ASX200, ASX300 and ALL-ORDS

By Greg Peel

It would appear the local market went down to the dock yesterday to throw streamers and cheer the arrival of the first shipment of Pfizer vaccine. For despite some solid profit results, little else explained the whiplash.

On Friday investors ran scared of the Victorian lockdown, dumping everything that would be impacted, mostly transport related. Yesterday it was a case of lockdown-schmockdown. Everything went back up again.

And some.

It is reminiscent of a couple of weeks ago when the market went into a mad panic on a sudden jump in bond yields. The following day, it mattered not. The market fully recovered. We can perhaps deduce that (a) momentum algos are exacerbating volatility and (b), there are plenty of buyers on the dips.

Star of reporting season yesterday was Bendigo & Adelaide Bank ((BEN)), which posted a year on year profit increase and a lower than expected level of bad debts, and reinstated its dividend. That was worth 11.2%, which is a lot for a bank on one day.

Bendalaide was not the best ASX200 performer however, being pipped by a 16.9% jump for Zip Co ((Z1P)) and a 19.0% jump for Nearmap ((NEA)).

Zip is road-showing its business to US investors ahead of listing over there and must be saying the right things. Nearmap officially responded to the accusations of a short-selling hedge fund, suggesting the hedge fund’s report “demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of our business and the industry in which we operate”.

In other earnings news, Seven West Media ((SWM)) posted a big jump in profit and rose 6.8%, Aurizon Holdings ((AZL)) chimed in with 3.9% and the ever reliable JB Hi-Fi ((JBH)) gained 3.1%.

Altium ((ALU)) was the day’s worst performer, falling -4.8% on its result, followed by Beach Energy ((BPT)), down -4.3%, and would the last person to sell out of AGL Energy ((AGL)) please turn out the lights (-3.8%).

Utilities was the only sector to close in the red (-0.9%).

On Friday all the big miners were sold down and yesterday they were bought back again, despite the iron ore market being as good as closed. Materials was the best performing sector (+1.6%). Energy was hardest hit on Friday and yesterday gained 1.1%.

All other sectors saw decent gains, including staples and healthcare, which barely fell on Friday, and telcos, which was the only sector on Friday to close in the green.

It’s looking like the Victorian lockdown will only last the five days and without any lead from Wall Street, the futures are up another 22 points this morning.

All hail the vaccine. Already the UK has vaccinated one third of its population, and the US has considerably picked up the pace. There is a glow on the horizon.

Commodities

Copper is pushing merrily on, as are the oils for now.

Despite no movement in iron ore, the Aussie is up another 0.3% to US$0.7783.

Today

The SPI Overnight closed up 22 points or 0.3%

BHP Group’s ((BHP)) in the frame today, along with Ansell ((ANN)), Brambles ((BXB)) and plenty of others.

National Bank ((NAB)) provides a quarterly update.

The minutes of the February RBA meeting will be released.

FNArena's Corporate Results Monitor is updated daily throughout the month: https://www.fnarena.com/index.php/reporting_season/

The Australian share market over the past thirty days…

For more detail go to FNArena's Australian Broker Call Report, which is updated each morning, Mon-Fri.

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