Consumer stocks lift up ASX200 in buoyant Monday session

Bumper results from a bellwether retail giant injected renewed confidence into the Aussie sharemarket on Monday.

Buoyant consumer stocks lifted the local bourse on Monday with bumper results from bellwether retail business JB Hi-Fi injecting a new shot of confidence into the market.

The benchmark ASX200 rose 36 points, or 0.46 per cent, to close at 7813.7, while the broader All Ordinaries index climbed 37.8 points, or 0.47 per cent, to finish at 8028.5.

Tech stocks rallied 1.53 per cent to 3083.8.

The gains were broad based, with nine of 11 industry sectors ending in the green, led by IT with a 1.93 per cent lift and consumer discretionary stocks with an 1.91 per cent rise.

Retail giant JB Hi-Fi was the top performer on the benchmark, surging 8.33 per cent to a record high of $72.98 a share after reporting total sales for FY24 had held steady from the prior year at $9.6bn.

The company also reported promising sales for the month of July.

Net profits fell 16.4 per cent to $438.8m.

“JB Hi-Fi delivered a solid full-year result this morning with net income beating estimates and the announcement of a special full-franked dividend,” eToro markets analyst Josh Gilbert said.

“In what has been a tough period for retailers, there was undoubtedly a grey cloud looming over JB Hi-Fi’s results today, but these figures show resilience.

The local sharemarket reacted positively to the results from retail giant JB Hi-Fi. Picture: NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

“These results demonstrate how we continue to see consumers saying one thing and doing another.

“Consumer confidence is highly pessimistic but JB Hi-Fi’s July update showed sales have grown across all areas of the business year-over-year.

“This strong indicator of increasing consumer spending comes at a time when interest rates are sitting at their highest level in a decade.”

Other consumer stocks rallied on the results, with Harvey Norman jumping 3.72 per cent to $4.74, Super Retail Group advancing 4.95 per cent to $15.68 and Lovisa Holdings lifting 2.38 per cent to $33.60.

The big banks recorded a positive session, led by NAB with a 1 per cent gain to $35.99.

Commonwealth Bank rose 0.76 per cent to $130.53, ANZ gained 0.93 per cent to $28.22 and Westpac added 0.61 per cent to $28.22.

But the big miners fell as Singapore iron ore futures dipped 2.5 per cent to $98 a tonne.

The ASX200 lifted for a second positive session on Monday. Picture Newswire/ Gaye Gerard.

BHP slipped 0.54 per cent to $40.64, Rio Tinto shed 1.37 per cent to $114.88 and Fortescue lost 1.35 per cent to $18.24.

Monday’s lift marks the second straight session of gains for the local bourse, which continues to recover from last week’s dramatic sell-off sparked by fears of a recession in the US.

In corporate news, rail freight company Aurizon tumbled 8.84 per cent to $3.30 despite reporting a 25 per cent lift in profits to $406m for FY24.

The company announced a share buyback program of up to $150m.

The largest laggard was gas producer Beach Energy, which slumped 12.63 per cent to $1.24 after downgrading its reserves estimate for the Enterprise field in Victoria.

“Over recent weeks we have observed pressure decline at Enterprise which is consistent with a smaller reservoir than originally estimated,” CEO Brett Woods said.

The company also reported a $475m loss for the year, compared to a $401m profit in FY23.

The Aussie dollar gained 0.16 per cent to buy US65.8c at the closing bell.

Originally published as Consumer stocks lift up ASX200 in buoyant Monday session