FNArena hereby presents its latest initiative; the Reporting Season Monitor. The idea is to provide investors with a one stop shop to stay up to date with what the reporting season in Australia is offering in terms of earnings beats and misses and everything else that might be of importance. Today's report is a thin one given less than a handful of companies has updated on its financial performance thus far, but as August rolls on, the content of this report will incrementally build into the complete bible for every investor in the Australian share market.

At least that's the plan. Daily updates will be added onto today's starting update so investors don't have to search for previous updates, only the most recent Monitor should suffice. Note that because we are relying on stockbrokers responses, there is a 24 hour delay between market update and inclusion in this Reporting Season Monitor.

This Report, including its attachment (see above), will be made publicly accessible today and tomorrow only. From Monday onwards we will keep the precious bits for paid subscribers.

FNArena's Reporting Season Monitor

Note: Excel file attached (two tabs)

Guide:

Each day of the Australian six-monthly reporting season, FNArena provides a summary of broker responses to the previous day's profit result releases from companies under coverage. Readers are reminded that it matters not what actual profit/loss result is posted by each company but by how much that result exceeded/fell short of stock analysts' consensus forecasts. Stock price movements on the day of release, and in many cases for the months following the release, will often be determined by the extent of "beats" and "misses" of underlying earnings as well as company guidance and analyst/management outlook.

A rolling summary table (Excel) is attached to each day's report and will build as the season progresses. Additions will be made each day, consistent with releases dates, while stocks will be listed in alphabetical order for ease of use until the full picture of the reporting season emerges.

Note that companies assessed include only those covered by the eight major stockbrokers in the FNArena database (approximately top 400) and that ratings changes and targets are those provided only by the database brokers.

There are many reasons as to why investors (should) pay attention to half-yearly and yearly financial updates from listed entities. It forces management teams and boards to provide updates and insights into how a