This is the Fear and Greed Afternoon Report - everything you need to know about what happened in the markets, economy and world of business today, in just a few minutes.
ASX closes lower
CHESS fails
Super buys banks
WES sale
Bilson’s sale
Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Friday eighty twentieth of December twenty twenty four. I'm Sean Elmer. Every afternoon, we've got the five stories that happened today that you need to know about. Story one. The ASX two hundred closed the day down one point two percent to eight thousand and seventy six points, following the two percent drop yesterday. Whether it was the lead of Wall Street fears about inflation, profit taking, whatever it was, the market ended lower and at one point today hit a three month bottom. The bank's got hit hard, as did the consumer discretionary stocks. West Farmers finished down five percent. JB High five was off more than two percent. The energy and utility sectors performed best, with Woodside rising a couple of percent. Story number two. Not a great day for the Australian Securities Exchange with the Chess system crashing. The exchange notified its regulators, the Reserve Bank and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission about an issue that has caused a delay to settlement processes this afternoon. Some failure in the AX Chess batch processing systems means payments for trades are not going through. According to the fin review, the Chess system manages share transactions and documentation. Chess remains available late this afternoon to provide sufficient time for Chess users to complete activities following resolution of this issue, although as we go aware, I'm not sure that the issue has been resolved as yet. Sorry. Number three. The big surparanuation funds are overweight banks, increasing their ownership of the Big four or in fact all Australian banks to twenty nine point seven percent in September from twenty seven point nine percent a year earlier. Buying by the big super funds has been a key reason why bank stocks have performed so well this year. Notwithstanding, Commonwealth Bank today hit a one month lower after it fell three point seven percent. Banks have also benefited from rising passive and exchange traded fun flows. According to Morgan's Standing, bank valuations are now seven times above the long run average on an earning's multiple basis. In other words, they're very expensive on an historical basis. Over the last year, Westpack is up thirty nine percent, Commonwealth Bank is up thirty five percent. National Australia Bank has risen nineteen percent. Ain zed eight percent. Story number four West Farmers will sell its core Gas business to a subsidiary of Nippon Sanseel Holdings for about seven hundred and seventy million dollars. Once completed, West Farmers expects to report a pre tax profit on the sale of somewhere between two hundred and thirty and two hundred and sixty million dollars. Core Gas is part of West Farmer's Industrial and Safety division and is one of Australia's largest manufacturers and suppliers of industrial gases. The business distributes industrial, medical, and specialty gases in cylinders, offers a wide range of bulk gases from medium to large users. Nippon Sanso is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is headquartered in Japan. The salest subject to the receipt of certain consents, also needs tick of approval from the Competition and Consumer Commission and the Foreign Investment Review Board. And Story number five New York listed soft drinks group the Coca Cola Company, has bought the ready to drink spirits business of Bilson's Beverages, the Victorian group that collapsed in late July. Bilson's Beverages sells vodka based drinks with flavors such as berry, jelly, musk, green apple, and grape bursts through Endeavor operated retail chains Dan Murphy's and Bwsleculand That's owned by Cole's, as well as independent liquor stores. According to the FINN administrators, mcgrah Nickel took control of the operation on July thirty one. Ran a sale process for the business, which originally was established in eighteen sixty five in regional Victoria. Coca Cola, with a sheer market capitalization of two hundred and sixty nine billion US dollars, has acquired only the ready to drink spirits business, with Nathan and Felicity Cowen, who owned the business, to keep running the much smaller Bilson's Cordial Soda and Beer operations. That's it for the afternoon report for Friday, the twentieth of December twenty twenty four. Make sure you hit follow on the podcast. Will back tomorrow morning with the weekend of the Day of Fear and Greed business news. I'm Sean Elmer. Enjoy your evening.