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It was a massive day for company earnings reports on the ASX200 today.
And some good ones helped the index close 0.38 of a per cent up.
Consumer staples, materials and consumer discretionary were the leading sectors, but IT reversed all of yesterday’s plus-5 per cent gains.
In the green
Woolworths (WOW) was up more than 3.5 per cent after releasing its annual report for FY23.
The group announced an after-tax profit of $1.62 billion – up 4.6 per cent.
However, Woolworths warned it’s facing higher operating costs and increased theft as consumers battle cost-of-living pressures. Woolworths closed trade at $37.55.
With the iron ore price recovery today, BHP, FMG and RIO were all up around two per cent.
Australia’s largest pizza chain Domino’s Pizza (DMP) gained more than 11 per cent, despite net profit falling nearly 75 per cent to $40.6 million last financial year.
There were fewer sales, but the revenue actually increased by 2.2 per cent, due to higher prices.
Dominos closed the day at $53.45.
Explorer Lithium Universe (LU7) closed up 3.5 per cent after outlining the lithium and rare earth elements potential across its projects in Canada and Australia.
One of those – The Apollo project – is less than 30 kilometres southeast of Patriot Battery Metals’ (PMT) Corvette project.
Patriot has a lithium resource there of nearly 110 million tonnes (Mt) at 1.42 per cent lithium oxide.
LU7 closed the day at 5.9 cents.
And Raiden Resources (RDN) gained 58 per cent off a low base, after announcing the discovery of pegmatite outcrops at its Andover South project in Western Australia.
The company identified a 30-metre-wide outcrop of lithium pegmatite mineralisation and closed the day’s trade at 1.9 cents.
In the red
IT giant WiseTech (WTC) fell nearly 20 per cent despite the company reporting a nine per cent jump in its statutory net profit for FY23 to $212.2 million. It also showed a 29 per cent increase in revenue to nearly $820 million, but, investors remain wary of the company’s FY24 guidance.
Wisetech closed the day just below $70.
Telstra (TLS) was down one per cent and closed the day just above 4 dollars.
And Corporate Travel Management (CTD) took a 6.9 per cent dive because its guidance for this financial year has not met expectations. The fall came despite the company’s profits for FY23 reaching $92.5 million, many times higher than $19.8 million in FY22.
The company closed the day just above $18.
