Australian Stock Market Report – Afternoon November 3, 2014

An office worker is reflected in the window of the Australian Securities Exchange building displaying the ASX50 curve for Wednesday in central Sydney August 7, 2013. Australian shares skidded 1.3 percent on Wednesday, its biggest fall in five weeks, hit by sharp falls in miners and financials as regional markets tracked a soft Wall Street lead amid uncertainty about the U.S. Federal Reserve's stimulus programme REUTERS/Daniel Munoz (AUSTRALIA - Tags: BUSINESS)

Sellers take the initiative in the afternoon

 The Australian sharemarket has ended the session near the day's lows. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) slipped 20pts or 0.3 per cent to 5,485. Consumer Staples were the worst performing sector dropping 1.94 per cent. Volume 1.68 billion shares traded worth $4.2 billion. 359 stocks finishes firmer, 579 ended lower and 360 closed unchanged.

 Woolworths (WOW) shares tumbled 4.89 percent to $34.24 after its first-quarter sales results missed analyst expectations. Sales rose 3 per cent to $16.15 bn, the slowest rate of quarterly growth in more than four years. While same-store sales for food and liquor climbed 2.1 per cent, the slowest rate of growth since late 2013.

 Westpac (WBC) shares finished the session down 0.6 per cent to $34.55. The bank posted an 8 per cent rise in full-year cash profit to $7.6 billion, in line with market expectations. The result was boosted by strong lending and growth in customer deposits.

 Brambles (BXB) upgraded its full year earnings guidance. The pallet maker revised annual earnings guidance higher reflecting the contribution of a recent acquisition. BXB recently acquired container maker Ferguson Group, paying US$515 million for the group which services the oil and gas sector. As a result Brambles expects to post an underlying profit for the full year in 2015 of between US$1.06 billion and US$1.09 billion. Based on foreign exchange rates at June 3 the forecast represents earnings growth of between 9 and 12%. These figures compare to estimates in August when the group said that it expected full year earnings of between US$1.03 billion and US$1.06 billion. BXB shares were up by 0.7 % at $9.60

 A raft of economic data was released today. The TD Securities-Melbourne Institute monthly inflation gauge was up 0.2 per cent in October. Prices are up just 2.3 per cent on a year ago. The Performance of Manufacturing index rose by 2.9 points to 49.4 in October. ABS residential building approvals fell by a very large 11% in September, thanks to a 19.8% fall in Victoria. ANZ job advertisements increased by 0.2% over October.

 The "official" Chinese manufacturing purchasing managers' index eased from 51.1 to 50.8 in October. The "official" services purchasing managers index eased from 54.0 to 53.8 in October . Elsewhere, the HSBC variant of the manufacturing purchasing managers' index was unchanged at a final reading of 50.4 in October. HSBC said manufacturing output in China continued to increase in October, albeit at the weakest rate in the current five month sequence of growth. Additionally the authors of the survey said where higher output was noted, this was generally attributed to increased new order volumes, although the latter also expanded at the slowest rate in five months. Growth of new business from abroad meanwhile slowed from September's four and-a-half year high.

 The Australia dollar was weighed down by an improving US dollar in addition to headwinds generated by the underwhelming manufacturing data from China. At the end of the Asian session the local unit was trading at 87.4 US cents

 Ahead tonight, European and German PMI Manufacturing for the month of October will be released. While in the US, car sales, the ISM anufacturing index and construction spending numbers are awaited.

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