The Australian share market or ASX 200 (INDEXASX: XJO)(^AXJO) is tipped to start lower today after the USA’s S&P 500 Index (.INX) fell 1% on Monday.
- Australian Dollar ($A) (AUDUSD): 67.53US cents
- Dow Jones (DJI): down 1.48%
- Oil (WTI): $US54.93 per barrel
- Gold: $US1,512 per ounce
ASX News
Making ASX news today, Auckland International Airport Limited (ASX: AIA) released its monthly traffic numbers showing that total passengers grew by 2.2% to 1.535 million drive by a 3.4% increase of domestic passengers to 709,000.
International passengers, which grew 1.9%, was led by North American passengers. USA passengers increased by 10% and Canada passengers went up ~32%.
Magellan’s Trading Halt
Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MFG) surprised the market today by going into a trading halt.
The international shares focused investment fund is going to undertake a capital raising whilst also issuing its FY19 result to investors this morning.
Magellan had a very strong year during FY19 with international markets, particularly the US market, rising strongly during the year whilst the Australian Dollar fell compared to the US Dollar.
Challenger Profit Down 5%
Finally, annuity fund manager Challenger Ltd (ASX: CGF) has reported its full year result for FY19.
Challenger revenue grew by 8.3% to $2.37 billion, but net profit declined by 4.6% to $307.8 million. ‘Normalised’ net profit before tax went up $1 million to $548 million and ‘normalised’ net profit after tax dropped 2.5% to $396 million.
The Board of Challenger decided to maintain its final dividend at 18 cents per share, meaning that the total dividend for the year was 35.5 cents per share – the same as last year. The FY20 dividend is also expected to be 35.5 cents per share.
[ls_content_block id=”695″ para=”paragraphs”]
At the time of publishing, Jaz does not have a financial interest in any of the companies mentioned.
