Report
EUR 113.79 For Business Accounts Only

Putting Aussie Earnings Conviction to the Test

  • Reporting Season Performance. Our recently published Earnings Season Wrap highlighted concerns about the number of downgrades to FY19 earnings during the reporting period, particularly in Mining, Financials and Consumer Discretionary.  
  • Taking a Leap of Faith. ALU, WEB, SKI, SGP, CHC and SWM have seen not only strong increases in consensus EPS growth forecasts, but the strong net number of upgrades add a further layer of conviction to the outlook for these stocks.  
  • Clearing the Decks with Conviction. The strongest downgrade conviction appears to be in SDA, WOW, SGM, PRY, VOC, ABP, CGC, WBC, GEM, AHG, NAN, RHC and AMC given they are at the bottom of the list of net upgrades and the bottom of the list for EPS growth revisions.  
  • The downgrades to ABP, GEM, CGC, and AHG all occurred against an improvement in earnings quality that could suggest these stocks have been marked down too far. 
  • NCM saw cuts to earnings growth at the start of year translate into improving earnings growth during reporting season. 
  • A relatively thin base has emerged in the key sectors. Downgrade momentum seems to still be entrenched in Banks and it is too early to move back into the sector, despite attractive valuations.  
Underlyings
Abacus Property Group

Abacus Property is a property group that operates predominantly in Australia. Co.'s operating segments include: property, which is engaged in the investment in and ownership of commercial, retail and industrial properties; funds management, which includes development, origination, co-investment and fund management activities; property ventures, which provides secured lending and related property financing solutions and is also responsible for Co.'s investment in joint venture developments and construction projects, as well as Co.'s investment in property securities; and storage, which is engaged in the investment in and ownership of self-storage facilities.

Altium

Altium is engaged in the development and sale of computer software for design of electronic products. Co. has three operating segments: Board and Systems Division, which includes results from the PCB design tool business for the Americas, EMEA, Asia Pacific and Emerging Markets regions as well as other products sold through partner channels; Micro-controllers and Embedded Systems, which includes results from the TASKING software solutions sales, operations and research and development; as well as Makers and Content, which includes the results from Co.'s subsidiary, Octopart Inc., which is a provider of electronic parts data and online inventory search.

Amcor PLC Shs Chess Depository Interests Repr 1 Sh

Amcor is a packaging company. Co. has the following reportable segments: Amcor Rigid Plastics, which manufactures rigid plastic containers for a range of primarily beverage and food products; Amcor Flexibles, which represents the aggregation of four operating segments of which each manufactures flexible and film packaging for their respective industries; as well as Other/Investments, which holds Co.'s equity accounted investments in the associate AMVIG Holdings Limited (AMVIG) and the joint venture Discma AG (Discma). AMVIG is mainly involved in the manufacture of tobacco packaging while Discma's operations primarily relate to the development and licensing of packaging product development.

Automotive Holdings Group Limited

Automotive Holdings Group is an automotive retailing group in Australasia. Co. has two logistics divisions: Automotive, which operates passenger vehicle and truck and bus dealerships in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, and passenger vehicle dealerships in Auckland, New Zealand and Refrigerated Logistics, which provides cold storage and transport operations in every Australian mainland state through Rand, Harris, Scott's Refrigerated Freightways and JAT Refrigerated Road Services. As of June 30, 2016, Co.'s automotive segment had 188 motor vehicle franchises at 108 dealership locations operating within Australia and New Zealand.

Charter Hall Group

Charter Hall Group is engaged in the investment in property funds, and property funds management. Co. has the following two reportable segments: Property Investments, which comprises investments in property funds; as well as Property Direct Investments, which comprises direct interests in investment properties; and Property Funds Management, which comprises funds management services, property management services and other property services.

Costa Group Holdings Ltd.

Costa Group Holdings is a horticulture company and produce supplier to the Australian food retailers. Co. has three reportable segments: Produce, which operates in four main categories consisting of berries, mushrooms, glasshouse grown tomatoes and citrus; Costa Farms and Logistics, which incorporates interrelated logistics, wholesale avocado marketing and banana farming and marketing operations within Australia; and International, which comprises royalty income from licensing of Co.'s blueberry varietals in Australia, the Americas and Africa, and international berry farming operations in Morocco and China.

G8 Education Limited

G8 Education is engaged in the operation of early education centres owned by Co., and ownership of early education centre franchises. Co. operates in Australia and Singapore.

Healius

Primary Health Care is a medical center operator engaged in providing diagnostic imaging services and pathology services. Co. operates three principal operating segments: Medical Centres, which provides a range of services and facilities to general practitioners, specialists and other health care providers; Pathology, which provides pathology services; and Imaging, which provides imaging and scanning services from stand-alone imaging sites and from within the consolidated entity's medical centres.

Iluka Resources Limited

Iluka Resources is engaged in mineral sands exploration, project development, operations and marketing. Co. is a producer of zircon and titanium dioxide products, as well as rutile and synthetic rutile products. These products are used in a range of applications. Co.'s segments include Australia, which comprises the integrated mineral sands mining and processing operations in Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia; United States, which includes its mineral sands mining and processing operations in Virginia; and Mining Area C, which comprises a deferred consideration iron ore royalty interest over certain mining tenements in Australia operated by BHP Billiton Iron Ore.

Ramsay Health Care Limited

Ramsay Health Care is a global hospital group, which is engaged in providing health care services. Co.'s facilities cater for a range of health care needs from day surgery procedures to complex surgery, as well as psychiatric care and rehabilitation. As of June 30, 2016, Co. operated 223 hospitals and day surgery facilities across Australia, the U.K., France, Indonesia, Malaysia and Italy.

Sandfire Resources Limited

Sandfire Resources is a mining and exploration company. Co. is engaged in the production and sale of copper, gold and silver; and the exploration and evaluation of mineral tenements and projects in Australia and overseas. Co. has two operating segments: The DeGrussa Copper Mine, a copper-gold mine located in the Bryah Basin mineral province of Western Australia; and Exploration and evaluation, which includes exploration and evaluation of the mineral tenements in Australia and overseas, including exploring for potential repeats of the DeGrussa Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide mineralised system at the Doolgunna Projects and Co.'s investment in Tintina Resources Inc and WCB Resources Ltd.

Seven West Media

Seven West Media has four reportable segments: Television, which is engaged in the production and operation of commercial television programming and stations; Newspapers, which is comprised of the publishers of newspapers and insert magazines in Western Australia, Quokka (weekly classified advertising publication), Colourpress, Digital publishing and West Australian Publishers; Pacific -which is comprised of the publishers of magazines in print and digital editions as well as social and e-commerce business; as well as Other Business and New Ventures, which is made up of equity accounted investees; Radio (radio stations broadcasting in regional areas of Western Australia) and RED Live..

Sims Ltd.

Sims Metal Management buys, processes and sells ferrous and non-ferrous recycled metals and provides environmentally responsible solutions for the disposal of post-consumer electronic products, including information technology assets recycled for commercial customers. Co.'s product groups are: ferrous secondary recycling, which collects, processes and trades iron and steel secondary raw material; non-ferrous secondary recycling, which collects, processes and trades other metal alloys and residues; recycling solutions, which disposes post-consumer electronic products; and secondary processing and other services, which focuses on melting, refining and ingoting of certain non-ferrous metals.

Spark Infrastructure Group

Spark Infrastructure is engaged in investing in regulated electricity distribution and transmission businesses in Australia. Co. reportable segments are: Victoria Power Networks, which represent the 49.0% interest in two electricity distribution businesses in Victoria; SA Power Networks, which represent the 49.0% interest in the electricity distribution business in South Australia; TransGrid, which represent the 15.01% interest in the electricity transmission business in New South Wales; and Other which represents the economic interest in DUET Group, an Australian Securities Exchange listed entity head quartered in New South Wales.

SpeedCast International Ltd

SpeedCast International is a global network and satellite communications service provider, offering managed networks services in over 60 countries and a global maritime network serving customers worldwide. Co. has four product and services categories which include network services (design, deployment, operation and maintenance of networks), value added services (user applications, network optimisation, network optimisation and monitoring and management), equipment sales (the VSAT terminals and other types of equipment related) and wholesale VOIP (the sale of voice minutes on a wholesale basis to telecom customers). .

Stockland

Stockland is engaged in owning, managing and developing shopping centres, logistics centres and business parks, office assets, residential communities, and retirement living villages. As of June 30 2016, Co.'s Commercial Property portfolio included 42 retail centres, 27 properties of logistics and business parks portfolio, and nine assets of office portfolio; and it had approximately 76,800 lots in its residentialportfolio. Also, Co. is a retirement living operator in Australia, with over 9,600 established units across five states and the Australian Capital Territory, which includes a development pipeline of over 3,100 units.

Syrah Resources Limited

Syrah Resources is a resource company based in Australia. Co.'s principal activities consisted of the development and construction of the Balama Graphite Project in Mozambique; continued assessment of the use of graphite from the Balama Graphite Project as an input into the production of spherical graphite and recarburiser products; and ongoing exploration and evaluation studies, including further technical investigations into the potential to extract and produce vanadium from the Balama Graphite Project ore body.

Westpac Banking Corporation

Westpac Banking is a banking organization with branches, affiliates and controlled entities throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia and in the Pacific region. Co. provides a range of banking and financial services in these markets, including consumer, business and institutional banking and wealth management services. Co. is engaged in the provision of financial services including lending, deposit taking, payments services, investment portfolio management and advice, superannuation and funds management, insurance services, leasing finance, general finance, interest rate risk management and foreign exchange services. As of Sep 30 2017, Co. had total assets of A$851,875,000,000.

Woolworths Group Ltd

Woolworths Group is organized into five segments: Australian Food and Petrol, which involves the procurement of food and petroleum products for resale to customers in Australia; New Zealand Supermarkets, which involves the procurement of food and liquor and products for resale to customers in New Zealand; Endeavour Drinks Group, which involves the procurement of liquor products for resale to customers in Australia; BIG W, which involves the procurement of discount general merchandise products for resale to customers in Australia; as well as Hotels, which involves the provision of leisure and hospitality services, accommodation, entertainment and gaming in Australia.

Provider
Macro Strategy Advisors Pty Ltd
Macro Strategy Advisors Pty Ltd

About  us:

  • The business is a Proprietary Limited Australian company that is owned and fully operated by Shane Lee from a small office in Sydney’s CBD.
  • Shane worked for 17 years in Sydney-based senior research roles (economist, equity strategist and bond strategist) in global and regional investment banks and a domestic commercial bank prior to starting Macro Strategy Advisors. These roles straddled the asset classes making him uniquely positioned to advise multi-asset investors. He worked for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) for 3 years as a housing, commercial property and equity market analyst and a liquidity forecasting specialist.  He worked as a structural engineer in Queensland for 10 years prior to his career at the RBA. 

Aim of our business:

  • To partner with our clients in their aim to maximise returns. We provide timely, independent and thought-provoking research on thematic macro issues that are impacting or could impact financial markets. We aim to produce research that prompts our clients to question their assumptions.

Services:

  • A fortnightly research note.
  • Regular presentations and data support delivered by understanding our clients interests and investment process.
  • We also in work in confidence to investigate, analyse and report on issues at our clients direction. This work is done on a project-by-project basis.
  • As an Australian based business, the main focus is analysing how domestic and global issues impact Australian investors. However, our global and domestic insights are also valued by our offshore clients.

Our Edge:

  • Our low cost base relative to our competitors allows us to provide a quality product at a reasonable cost.
  • We are fully independent and don’t support a banking function or any third party. We have no interests other than providing our clients with the best possible research.
  • Our focus is not point forecasting, but providing rigorous analysis and insight. We don’t routinely focus on the top or bottom 10% of likely outcomes to create a headline.
  • Shane’s background in engineering has provided clients with unique insights into global infrastructure and domestic housing issues.

 

Analysts
Shane Lee

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