BPO TV

31st August 2022

Closing Bell - Grady Wulff

The Australian market’s rally over the past few days was very short lived, as the local market closed 0.16% lower today, weighed down by a sharp sell-off in energy stocks. Despite today’s losses, the local market posted a 0.6% gain.

The markets may have also been sold off after Australia’s second quarter construction work done data was released showing a decline of 3.8%, the largest quarterly decline in almost 5-years as the country’s building industry was heavily impacted by strong inflationary pressures and capacity constraints on the building front.

Private sector credit data for Australia was also released today showing an increase of just 0.7%, which was in-line with market consensus with all components of credit increasing in July including owner-occupier housing, investor housing, other personal and business.

Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals (ASX:CUV) was the top performing stock on the ASX200 today surging more than 17% a day, after releasing FY22 results including the company’s sixth straight annual profit driven by strong revenue growth. Zip Co (ASX:ZIP) also had investors piling in today, despite no price sensitive news released by the buy now, pay later provider today.

On the losing front, Pointsbet Holdings (ASX:PBH) took the biggest hit today, tumbling more than 13% after releasing FY22 results that disappointed investors. The online sports betting company reported its net loss increased by 43% to $267.7 million and EBITDA fell to a $243.6 million loss, but revenue increased 52% to $296.5 million. Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) shares were also sold off again today, as investors continue to sell out following the release of the mining company’s FY22 results on Monday.

The most traded stocks by Bell Direct clients today were BHP Group (ASX:BHP), Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) and the BetaShares Australian Strong Bear Hedge Fund (ASX:BBOZ).

As for what to watch overnight, further employment insights will be released in the US through ADP Employment Change data for August which will give a further idea of just how tight the US labour market is at present.