Any volatility in the markets can be unnerving at the very best of times, so I asked HotCopper contributor, investment expert, educator, and economic author Andrew Baxter how to read current market conditions.

“We’ve had the talk of tariffs, we’ve had interest rate moves, we’ve had a lot of social programs going on – the dispute between Russia and Ukraine and the very public spat in the White House – it’s been a lot for people to digest,” Baxter said while speaking to HotCopper in the Expert Exchange series.

“Part and parcel of that is why we’ve seen the savage level of sell-off we have over the last week or so, as people come to grips with the news flow and try to make sense of it.

“Maybe we’re on the other side of it.”

“We’ve been in an incredibly strong bull market,” Baxter said.

“Since 2022, we’ve seen the market in the bottom left to top right trend.

“So seeing a pullback of 10% or 15%, I guess it’s like running up a hill: [When] you get to the top of it you’ve got to stop and pause for breath.

“We’ve seen that pull back [before].

“When you look at the underlying earnings, we’ve come out of an earnings season which has been largely solid, about 40% up on expectations… so the underlying machinery that’s driving markets remains intact.

“It’s the newsflow and the chaos around that, I think, which has really seen us on the back foot – so to speak.”

Andrew Baxter called it a “buying opportunity” – as long as the buying horizon isn’t too short. In this interview, he shares thoughts on what some of those buying opportunities could be.

You can hear more from Andrew on the Money And Investing podcast, right here on Hot Copper as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.

Join the discussion: See what’s trending right now on Australia’s largest stock forum and be part of the conversations that move the markets.

Disclaimer: Wealth Magnet Pty Ltd (ABN 52 618 868 830) trading as Australian Investment Education is a Corporate Authorised Representative (CAR no. 1255231) of Grange Financial Services Pty Ltd (AFSL No. 488609).

The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

The executives said the sale – which represents less than 4% of their respective shareholdings – had involved approaches from various institutions, and confirmed they would not be selling any more for the foreseeable future.

The price used for conduct of the sale was $256.73 – Pro Medicus’ last closing price.

Dr Hupert and Mr Hall continue to be the medical imaging software company’s largest shareholders, holding more than 24 million shares each. Their combined stake in Pro Medicus remains at 46% after the sale.

Board chairman Peter Kempen AM said “this sale of shares by the founders is part of a progressive sell down, which provides prospective shareholders with the opportunity to invest in the company and ultimately will increase the “free float”.”

Pro Medicus has been trading at $256.73 this morning.

Join the discussion: See what HotCopper users are saying about Pro Medicus and be part of the conversations that move the markets.

The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

Case in point: it owns the two largest online investment communities in Australia and Canada.

In fact: its well-known Australian forum, HotCopper – through being a centralised hub for Australian traders to discuss their investments, and company announcements – regularly helps to make or break mining juniors. 

In this way, HotCopper shapes our local share market. The same is true for its counterpart Canadian offering, Stockhouse. 

And HotCopper, it can’t be ignored, is miles ahead of all competition. 

In fact, it’s ahead of multiple competitors combined.

Quick disclaimer here: I write for HotCopper, but I thought it was about time I looked closely at the company that pays my bills.

And this is what first caught my attention when I took the job.

Get this: according to data from web analytics company Similarweb pulled in late September, HotCopper clocks in 7.015M monthly visits. 

Nationally recognised finance media brand Stockhead, meanwhile, only pulls in 281.4K visits per the Similarweb analysis this finance journalist has seen. 

And that’s just visits. When it comes to page views, HotCopper is currently raking in 43.09M views ­– driven in large part by its collaborative chat-forum design.

Stockhead, not to be too disparaging, only pulls in 501K per month. 

The Market’s Capital Markets division owns HotCopper, Stockhouse (HotCopper’s equivalent in Canada), The Market Online (formerly known as The Market Herald) and The Market Link, which is the investor relations operator.

But The Market offers far more than stock market forums and services.

The Market Ltd’s truly a diversified communications company – you may or may not know that it owns Australian e-classifieds success story Gumtree.  The Market also owns Carsguide & Autotrader – together, these three entities form the Gumtree Group arm of the business.

Let’s take a look at each of the brands that make up Gumtree Group. 

Gumtree Group, as all three companies put together, collectively see more than 5M unique users interact each month – that means 20 per cent of the Australian population visits its three sites on a monthly basis. 

Last financial year, the classifieds website Gumtree alone received over 350M page views per month. Like MKT’s capital markets division, Gumtree Group clearly boasts some of Australia’s most high-traffic websites, period.

According to The Market’s most recent annual report, Gumtree’s annual listed Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) equalled an eye-catching A$30B. Key categories of cars, jobs, pets, home & garden and real estate attained some 2M listings.

As technology evolves, so the nature of Gumtree Group is changing.

Over the past year Gumtree launched its first transactional offerings with the roll-out of an Instant Cash Offer product and a Car Inspection service. 

The Market’s CEO Tommy Logtenberg promises additional transactional products are on the cards – with launches in coming months with a focus on payments and shipping.

“This will provide us with a sound monetisation opportunity and further strengthens our trust and safety capabilities,” Mr Logtenberg said.

Vehicle sales are an important component of the overall brand. Over 2,500 car dealers nationally use Gumtree Group – Gumtree itself, as well as Carsguide and Autotrader – to market their products to the Australian populace at large. 

Carsguide ranked the #1 website in Australia per Nielsen ratings (Jan-August 2024) for automotive editorial, which combines listings, advice, reviews and auto news. 

Monthly page views amount to 18M for Carsguide alone. 

And Gumtree Group’s activities in the real estate sector are also on an upward trajectory.

Gumtree recently announced a partnership with the Homely Group in its real estate category, which is anticipated to go live in November 2024. 

“Through this partnership, the total number of real estate listings on Gumtree across both for sale and rentals will grow significantly, from nearly 11,000 to around 200,000 nationwide,” Mr Logtenberg said.

Given this impressive portfolio of online brands – and the untouchable superiority of HotCopper as a magnet for finance-media-hungry web traffic – it’s perhaps surprising, then, that the stock remains highly illiquid. It’s tightly held.

But with RBA rate cuts on the relatively immediate horizon and a slowly recovering US IPO market – the megatrend of private equity be damned – are investors missing a good opportunity while shares are cheap?

Of all the sectors on the ASX, Telecommunications –  which includes media companies – is one of the most esoteric.

You already know the big market cap names – mainly Telstra – but I’m willing to bet aside from one or two little darlings, you can’t name many others. 

But it’s well worth recognising the sector is far more than a national phone service provider and a few TV stations.  

It’s a rich and often overlooked segment of the Australian share market’s overall composition – at least compared to mining, property, healthcare and finance – which is perhaps strange given it’s one of the most important sectors for Australian society.

Or any society. Consider this. 

Our national broadcasters sway public opinions and help to evolve the current political mood(s) of our time. 

Telstra, meanwhile, connects vast swathes of the country – in many cases, providing the infrastructure required for that media to be broadcast onto phones. 

Telecomms matters – but, from time to time, it can feel like many share market traders overlook the sector in favour of sectors that might come more obviously to the forefront of the mind, given we’re a country of ore and expensive houses. 

But in that binary way of thinking, there’s possibly a lot of potential value that could be missed.   

The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

Powell’s stance at the annual Jackson Hole event all but secures a September cut – the question remains as to by how much.

US markets rallied on that news on Friday: The Nasdaq rising 1.4%, and the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones, by 1.1%.

Back home, earnings reporting continues:

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (ASX:BEN) is paying a 63c dividend – which is 2 cents higher this year after reporting cash earnings down 2.6% to $562 million, but net profit after tax (NPAT) was up nearly 10% to $545 million.

Data service company Veris (ASX:VRS) reported a loss after tax of $4.7 million, citing challenging conditions and a strategy shift for revenue being down about 8%.

But Veris holds more than $16 million to explore merger and acquisition opportunities.

Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) has reported revenue of $1.25B, nearly 70% lower than FY23. It’s blaming commodity prices, but says that pain was offset by 16% larger sales volumes. While EBITDA of $538M was 84% lower, it reported a profit after tax that was 89% lower at $257 million.

Iron Ore is down to just above US$98 a tonne ($98.05); Gold is at US$2514 an ounce; brent crude’s around US$79.50 a barrel; and natural gas is down at just above US$2 a gigajoule ($2.01).

One Aussie dollar is buying US67.9 cents.

It was the end of an eight-day rally in the US overnight, with the S&P500 and Nasdaq shedding .2% and the Dow Jones also down about 60 points (.15%).

Volatility picked up as investors sought hints on the size of the now highly-anticipated rate cut next month.

Back home, plenty of FY24 reports are coming in…

One of the first out the gate was Cleanaway Waste Management (ASX:CWY) which posted an annual statutory net profit for FY24 nearly $135 million – or more than 570% – higher than for the previous year.  

Insurer Insurance Australia Group (ASX:IAG) reported profit up 8% to just below $900 million, and, its full year dividend is 80% up on FY23.

Pallets, crates and containers company Brambles (ASX:BXB) also reported profit after tax some 8% higher, and it’s dividend is up 30% on the previous financial year.

The Australian dollar is stronger today – its buying US67.4c.

Gold is up nearly half a per cent to US$2515 an ounce, iron ore is just above US$98 ($98.10) a tonne, brent crude has shed three quarters of a per cent to US$77 a barrel, and, natural gas is just under US$2.20 a gigajoule. ($2.19).

That’s thanks to Wall Street’s rally overnight – the sixth in a row for the S&P500 as it continued to recover from last week’s recession-fear-triggered sell-off.

All sectors performed well today – and at close Energy & Materials were the best performing – both gaining 2%.

Woodside (ASX:WDS) was a key player, up 2.3% thanks to its half year results yesterday.

Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) saw shares rise 5% the day after announcing it’ll acquire Latin Resources (ASX:LRS) in a scrip deal valued at 20 cents a share.

PLS is looking to tap into Latin Resources’ hard rock lithium project in Brazil.

Pilbara Minerals closed the week at $2.88.

Latin Resources also gained 2.7% to close at 19 cents – it’s been a good few days for shareholders – with Latin Resources at just 11 cents earlier in the week.

James Hardie Industries (ASX:JHX) was up more than 6% after announcing another on-market buy back of 95,000 shares. It had already amassed more than 6.6 million securities.

The building products company released earnings for the first quarter of FY25 earlier this week, showing adjust EBITDA up 2% on the same time last year – to $420 million.

Trade closed at $51.99.

And Zip Co (ASX:ZIP) gained about 13.5% reaching a new yearly high, thanks to strength in US consumer data.  

Today it scheduled an investor conference call for later this month where it will hand down its annual results.

Zip Co closed at $2.19.

Victory Metals (ASX:VTM) shares sunk more than 8.5% on announcing it raised $1.5 million in a placement priced at 33 cents.

The funds will support a 5000 metre aircore drilling program at its rare earths project near Cue in WA.

Victory closed at 37 cents. 

Silver Mines (ASX:SVL) fell more than 40% after an Appeals Court upheld an environmental group’s challenge against its proposed NSW Bowdens silver zinc and lead project, now putting project consent in doubt.

The Bingman Catchment Landcare Group took issue with the state planning commission’s failure to consider the impacts of a power line 30km from Mudgee.

 Silver Mines closed at 9 cents

And Golden Mile Resoruces (ASX:G88) fell close to 5% on news it’ll surrender licenses for its multi-element Marble Bar and Murchison tenements, saving about $137,000 a year.

Fieldwork turned up no compelling rock chip or soil samples, leaving geotechs unenthusiastic about their prospectivity. The company will focus on its copper project in Arizona.

G88 closed the week at 1 cent.

Some of the biggest drags included Tesla – which fell 12%; ARM and Nvidia were both down close to 8%; Visa shed nearly 4%; and, Microsoft, 3.5%.

Meanwhile Canada’s TSX lost ground after policymakers dropped interest rates by 25 basis points to 4.5%. It’s the second monthly rate cut in a row.

Back in Australia and last month’s labour force data is due out later this morning.

Earnings reports are likely to dominate headlines, with Newmont Corporation (ASX:NEM) reporting production of 2.1 million ounces of gold, it reduced debt by $250 million, and it claims it’s on track to achieve its guidance.

Fortescue (ASX:FMG) delivered record iron ore shipments of 53.7 million tonnes – which is up 10 per cent year-on-year, but Ampol (ASX:ALD) reported its fuel sales were down nearly 6% for the first half of 2024 calendar year.

Our dollar lost half a per cent, to be buying US65.8 cents.

Silver took a 1.2% slide, to be back at $28.84 an ounce; Gold also pulled back to be at US$2394.72 – despite India lowering import duties on both precious metals. Iron ore’s been trading just above $108 a tonne, brent crude recovered to $81.52 a barrel, but natural gas continued its volatility dropping 2.85% to $2.12 a gigajoule.

The SPP closed on April 10 after 31 days with applications being made for a total of 23,175,000 shares, which were to be issued at $0.02 – this was a 9.09 percent discount to the closing price of $0.022 per share on March 12, as well as being a 9.09 percent discount to the 5-day volume weighted average price (VWAP) prior to the announcement.

The company said April 17 would be the date for both issue of the shares and lodgement of Appendix 2A in relation to the SPP.

Lithium Universe – chaired by Iggy Tan – previously updated the market with its plan to bridge the gap in North American lithium production through development of its Québec Lithium Processing Hub (QLPH), which utilises technology developed at Lithium Universe’s Jiangsu Lithium Carbonate facility in Western Australia.

The hub includes both a multi-purpose independent concentrator which can handle one million tonnes per year and an independent battery-grade lithium carbonate refinery managing up to 16,000 tonnes per year.

Lithium Universe is trading at 2.6c.

It is widely considered that the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, with roots back to the ‘Dutch Golden Age’ of the 1600s, is the oldest modern stock trading venue.

But more importantly for investors, the European stock market provides investment opportunities that can be difficult to find elsewhere. While US indices are becoming increasingly tech-heavy, Europe offers a more diversified investment landscape.

The Euro STOXX 600 index offers a well-diversified group of companies covering all 11 Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) sectors. Healthcare makes up the biggest proportion of the index, covering 15.4 per cent, with Industrials, Banks, Tech and Food/Beverage/Tobacco currently rounding out the top 5.

This diversification is worth noting, especially in light of the increasing tech sector concentration risk in the major US indices and the dominance of the ‘Magnificent Seven‘ – despite growing concerns that Tesla may soon fall out of that group.

The Euro STOXX 600 index has enjoyed the same recent positive performance as most indices across the globe, climbing around 40 per cent in the 5 years to December. While indices like the US S&P500 and Nasdaq have enjoyed higher returns over the same period, that is largely due to their aforementioned tech concentration, which comes with specific risks.

You can gain exposure to the Euro STOXX 600 index through Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) products such as the iShares STOXX Europe 600 UCITS ETF, the Lyxor Core STOXX 600 ETF, and the BNP Paribas Easy Stoxx Europe 600 UCITS ETF.

Since January 2019, the 20 best performing stocks of the Euro STOXX 600 have all returned more than 180 per cent, with healthcare giant Novo Nordisk (Denmark) the best performing, returning 433 per cent. This also means Novo Nordisk has become Europe’s most valuable company in terms of market capitalisation. The second most valuable company is the 20th best performing over the 5 years to January, LVMH (France). ASML (the Netherlands), which has the index’s second-best 5-year performance, squeezed in as the fourth most valuable company.

The index’s top 20 performers come from 10 different countries – 3 each from Denmark, France, Switzerland and the UK, two each from Italy and the Netherlands, and one each from Germany, Sweden, Ireland and Belgium. See the table below*.

* 5-year returns constitute price on January 1, 2019 – price on January 9, 2024.

Disclaimer: Saxo Capital Markets (Australia) Limited (Saxo) provides this information as general information only, without taking into account the circumstances, needs or objectives of any of its clients. Clients should consider the appropriateness of any recommendation or forecast or other information for their individual situation.

The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

In a key move today, Fortescue Metals Group (ASX:FMG) announced it’ll invest $35 million to set up a US Advanced Manufacturing Centre in Michigan, expanding its manufacturing capability footprint and creating 600 initial jobs.

The centre will produce automotive and heavy industry batteries, hydrogen generators, fast chargers and electrolysers.

Founder and Executive Chairman Andrew Forrest made the announcement during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

FMG will also establish a new green energy investment accelerator platform, Fortescue Capital, headquartered in New York.

FMG closed up 0.08 per cent at $25.22. 

Two stocks mysteriously spiked into the best performer category today…

Digital sound stock Audio Pixels Holdings (ASX:AKP) soared nearly 20 per cent, and, Ora Banda Mining (ASX:OBM) by more than 11 per cent.

Audio Pixels was thinly traded with less than 20,000 shares changing hands and a closing price of $11.04, while Ora Banda’s the target of a Wesfarmers Chemicals, Energy and Fertilisers joint venture and farm-in deal.  The Wesfarmers (ASX:WES) arm is seeking 65 per cent of the company’s lithium and other non-gold mineral rights on its Davyhurst tenements, northwest of Kalgoorlie. The deal would be worth $26 million upfront with farm-in payments and royalties attached. 

Ora Banda closed at 20 cents.

Tasmanian foods producer TasFoods (ASX:TFL) closed up 15 per cent on news the Australian Competition and Consumer Comission (ACCC) has given the go ahead to Bega Cheese (ASX:BGA) buying its Betta Milk and Meander Valley Dairy business and assets in an $11 million deal. 

Bega will also have the right to use the Pyengana Dairy brand for milk and cream products in Australia.

TasFoods’ management expects the deal to be finalised before the end of the year. 

TFL closed at 3 cents. 

Bega Cheese (ASX:BGA) shareholders, however, weren’t so sure, sending its shares down a third of a per cent (.33 per cent) to $2.99.

Financial services company Steadfast Group (ASX:SDF) was down 3.33 percent after completing an Institutional Placement to raise $280 million.

The Placement was priced at $5.14, a 5 per cent discount to the last closing price.

The funds will go to the acquisition of Sure Insurance.

SDF closed at $5.23. 

And Karoon Energy (ASX:KAR) also lost ground on the back of a capital raise.

It was down 4.65 per cent on completing a Placement and Institutional Entitlement raising $384 million.

At $2.05, the raise was at a 14.6 per cent discount to Karoon’s closing price of $2.40 on  Tuesday. 

Karoon is raising for the acquisition of the Who Dat and Dome Patrol fields in the US Gulf of Mexico.

A Retail Entitlement opens next Thursday.

Karoon closed in line with the raise price at $2.05.