Aug reporting season ‘flurry’
THE August reporting season — when all local companies with June and December reporting dates release their financial results — is looming for New Zealand and Australia.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Chris Timms said yesterday there would also be a ‘‘flurry of activity’’ on the local front this week as a few results would be released and a handful of highprofile annual meetings would take place.
The healthcare sector would be in focus, he said. Abano and Oceania were both due to report fullyear results and Ryman Healthcare was holding its annual meeting.
In the utilities sector, Trustpower was holding its annual meeting and there would be a quarterly update from Genesis, he said.
Listed property companies Argosy and Kiwi would hold their annual meetings this week. The Mainfreight annual meeting on Thursday would be of interest, especially given how strong the share price had been lately.
Globally, the reporting season got off to a strong start, he said.
So far, about a fifth of the S&P 500 had reported. Of those, 77% had beaten revenue expectations and 81% had exceeded earnings forecasts.
‘‘This week is a monster one for global earnings with 194 S&P companies set to report,’’ Mr Timms said.
Some of the higherprofile names were technology heavyweights Alphabet (Google), Facebook, Intel and Amazon.
Oil majors Shell and Exxon Mobile would report as well as other key companies such as Caterpillar, 3M, CocaCola and Republic Services, Mr Timms said.
Also this week, the United States Federal Reserve would meet and release its interest rate decision. The decision was due for release at 6am on Thursday, New Zealand time.
Mr Timms said there would not be any updated economic forecasts or a press conference from chairwoman Janet Yellen and markets would only have the statement to go on.
No change was expected at the meeting and markets had become progressively more cynical about whether there would be another rate hike from the Fed this year.
Futures pricing now implied a 40% chance of another hike this year, down from 52% at the end of June, he said.
The other closely watched piece of data from the US this week would be the advance estimate of June quarter economic growth as measured by gross domestic product (GDP).
The data was due for release early on Saturday, New Zealand time.
The market consensus was for growth of 2.5%, which would be a reasonable outcome given firstquarter growth was 1.4%. It was better than the first two estimates of 0.9% and 1.2%, although it was the weakest since the 2016 March quarter, Mr Timms said.