Hello everyone! Good morning. This is Rachael live from Kalkine Studio in Sydney. And you’re
watching the Early Trades. Let’s, get started with our market open report.
Australian shares are trading slightly lower at the open,
with the gold miners offsetting losses from the health and technology sectors.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index is down 0.1 per cent.
Northern Star Resources was up 6.8 per cent, Evolution Mining was trading
6.5 per cent higher and Silver Lake Resources advanced 6.5 per cent.
Gold Road Resources was up 6.3 per cent, while Regis Resources firmed 6.3 per cent
and Ramelius Resources climbed 6.2 per cent.
Novonix was down 5.5 per cent, Liontown Resources was trading 4.9
per cent lower and Imugene was down 4.8 per cent.
Appen was also trading 3.9 per cent lower.
Lets take a look at some of the newsmakers from Today
Crown Resorts has accepted an $8.9 billion takeover offer from US investment firm Blackstone.
Under the terms of the offer, Crown shareholders will receive $13.10 a share, at
a 32 per cent premium to Crown’s closing price on November 18, 2021 when the offer was first made.
The Crown board has unanimously recommended shareholders vote in favour of the transaction.
Trading in Crown Resorts shares has been paused pending a further announcement from the company.
Sources close to Crown said the board signed a deal on Monday morning,
after weeks of negotiations about the sale agreement
and nearly one year after Blackstone made its first non-binding and indicative offer.
Soaring property valuations have supported a strong increase
in revenue and profit during the 2021 financial year for GPT Group.
The company’s revenue rose 720.6 per cent and net profit climbed 767.4 per cent.
The profit result was supported by an increase in property valuations.
Funds from operations was $554.5 million, flat on a year ago.
GPT Group declared a final distribution of 9.9¢ a share.
Most investors with a basic grasp of the Netflix business model will agree:
the streaming giant behind The Crown and Stranger Things spends a lot of money on content.
But what is arguably lost on the casual observer is that its investment in addictive viewing,
about $US8 billion is entirely self-funded, says Loftus Peak chief investment officer Alex Pollak.
In fact, Netflix bought back $US600 million of stock over the second and third quarters;
it will be free cashflow positive from this year onwards;
and for a $US183 billion market cap company, it has only about $US6 billion of net debt.
When Netflix shares fell 21.8 per cent on January 21 on disappointing subscriber growth,
it became the face of a torrid quarter for tech megacaps.
It was soon unseated by Facebook parent Meta Platforms, which fell 26.4 per cent on February 3.
Beach Energy grew net profits after tax 66 per cent to $212.9 million for the six months to
the end of December from the same period in the prior year, following a surge in the price of oil.
Revenue grew 10 per cent, helped along by “higher realised prices and higher third-party sales,
partly offset by lower production volumes and higher FX rates,” the company said.
The average price of oil jumped from $US47 per barrell to $US84 across the two periods,
adding a $198 million tailwind to revenue compared to the half-year 2021 results.
Praemium is on track for full-year earnings guidance of $16.5 million to $18.5 million
on an underlying basis after reporting EBITDA for the half of $7.5 million.
First-half revenue was up 25 per cent, and it reported a net loss of $2.6 million,
compared to a net profit of $2.8 million in the previous corresponding period.
Funds under administration were up 43 per cent, and no dividend was declared.
Well, that’s all for now on the early trades! Stay tuned to Kalkine TV,
as we have many more shows lined up for you for sharing live updates across the economy, markets,
and sectors. This is Rachael signing off!