Investors watching key financial results from country’s biggest companies and overseas geopolitical events

Some of the country’s biggest companies will release their results this week, while international geopolitics will also capture investor attention.

Investors will have one eye on the local market – with some of the country’s largest companies to report their latest financial ­results – and the other on international events from the debt crises in China to ructions on Wall Street as the week promises plenty for them to digest.

On the corporate front, the Australian Stock Exchange will ratchet up its release of financial results as last week’s stream of corporate profit reports turns into a flood.

Some of the key corporates many investors will be watching – for both a report on the year but also management commentary about outlook – will include Ampol and IAG on Monday, mining giant BHP and Coles on Tuesday, and Domino’s Pizza, WiseTech and Woolworths on Wednesday.

The week will end with dozens of results from heavyweight companies such as Qantas, Ramsay Healthcare, Nine, Medibank, Whitehaven, Wesfarmers and Tabcorp.

Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at AMP, said the June half earnings reporting season was about 40 per cent done in terms of companies and 51 per cent done in terms of market capitalisation. And so far, he added, it had proved to be a bit better than expected.

“But expectations are still getting revised down on the back of cautious corporate guidance – 45 per cent of companies have surprised on the upside which is just above the norm of 43 per cent and up on the February reporting season when it was just 27 per cent,” he said.

Mr Oliver said 54 per cent of companies had seen earnings rise on a year ago which is similar to February but down on the norm of 63 per cent.

“And only 48 per cent have increased their dividends on a year ago which is less than the norm of 58 per cent, suggesting a degree of caution. Fewer companies than normal have seen their share price outperform the market on the day they reported.

“Of course, there is still a way to go yet and companies with good results have a tendency to report early,” he said.

“Key themes so far are that cost pressures remain a challenge; building material companies are still benefiting from strong activity although there are expectations of a slowdown; insurers are seeing margin improvement; home borrowers are keeping up their payments; and corporate guidance has been cautious with more negative than positive guidance. Retailers in particular are warning of tougher conditions.”

On the international front, China’s President Xi Jinping will attend the summit of BRICS leaders in South Africa as he makes a state visit, only his second international visit of 2023.

Hosted on Tuesday by South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa, the leaders of the BRIC nations attending also include Lula da Silva from Brazil, Narendra Modi from India and Sergey Lavrov from Russia.

The BRIC nations represent a quarter of the global economy.