The Australian sharemarket has managed to outperform both Wall Street and key Asian markets over the last month despite the earnings season painting an “uninspiring picture” as analysts downgrade their forecasts for the year ahead.
A major driver of the S&P/ASX 200’s nearly 4 per cent rally – better than the S&P 500’s 3.6 per cent rise, Japan’s 2.1 per cent gain, and South Korea’s 1.7 per cent – has been resource companies. The sector has climbed 15 per cent in the past four weeks, helping to push index heavyweight BHP to a fresh record on Monday.
But a more unexpected boost has come from a resurgence in the health care sector, led by a nearly 50 per cent surge in blood plasma giant CSL. Last week the company jumped 17 per cent on results day, its largest single-day gain in 25 years.
UBS equity strategist Richard Schellbach said the last time CSL recorded such a rally was in June 2001 after a bumper earnings upgrade and the market’s warm reception of a US plasma business.
This time around, however, the earnings result “contained no such excitement” with CSL’s net profit beating consensus by just 2 per cent which prompted UBS to downgrade forward earnings.
Source: https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/asx-is-beating-wall-street-even-with-uninspiring-profit-results-20260824-p60qy4