Welcome to Wednesday. Here are the five things I'm looking at today on the Australian sharemarket.
- The S&P/ ASX 200 Index (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) has slumped 0.3% on opening, after Wall Street fell on renewed unrest between Russia and Ukraine. As Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management told Bloomberg,
"Equities appear to be navigating the dog days of summer (Northern hemisphere) with markets being driven more by geopolitical events than economic and company fundamentals."
It's never a dull day in the markets.
- Australia's largest bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) has reported a record $8.7 billion cash profit and declared a better-than-expected second half dividend of $2.18, taking full year dividends to $4.01. That's a 10% increase over the previous year. CBA shares were down 0.2% in early morning trade.
- For those investors who like their fully franked dividends, Suncorp Group (ASX: SUN) has rewarded investors with a 30 cent special dividend, to go with a 40 cent dividend, both fully franked. We suggested the company was likely to pay a special dividend last month. Suncorp shares were up 3% early, as the chase for high yields shows no sign of slowing down.
- Top tweet of the day
Anyone who paid $5.40 for CBA in 1991 Keating float has done fabulously well with annual dividend now $4.01 and stock at $81.69.
Stephen Mayne (@MayneReport) August 13, 2014A wonderful example of why a buy and hold strategy works, with initial investors receiving a fully franked yield of 74% on their initial investment – ignoring the 1512% capital gain!
- Stock of the day – brought to you by Regan Pearson is casino operator SkyCity Entertainment Group (ASX: SKC). Regan owns shares in the company and in today's post, gives 6 reasons why he thinks the company is a buy.
