The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) went up 2.6% today to 5,942 points.
If the ASX fell last week because of President Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis, then it may have reversed that negative sentiment with a prediction that he could leave hospital as early as Monday.
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Tax cuts
The ASX may be getting a bit of a boost today after more of the upcoming federal budget was reported by media.
Tax cuts will reportedly be backdated to 1 July 2020. The tax first bracket that gets taxed (with a 19% rate) will be extended to $45,000 (up from $37,000) and earners above $90,000 will benefit with the 37% tax rate changed to start at $120,000 rather than $90,000.
Plenty of 'Australian economy' ASX 200 shares went up today.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price grew 3.6%, the Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) share price rose 4.4%, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ASX: ANZ) share price rose 4.2% and the National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB) share price grew 4%.
In other movements, the biggest gain today came from Mesoblast Limited (ASX: MSB), its share price jumped 11.6%. According to the ASX, the worst performer was the Viva Energy Group Ltd (ASX: VEA) share price which dropped 12.1%.
Altium Limited (ASX: ALU)
The ASX 200 software business announced today that it's expanding its leadership and organisational capacity to improve performance and invest more into Altium 365.
Altium said that the successful launch and the strong early adoption of Altium 365 has created the opportunity to pivot Altium's leadership and organisation structure towards the cloud. It's separating its cloud operations from its software business and will focus on growing its market opportunity and expansion into the broader electronics ecosystems.
Under the new organisation structure, the 'cloud' and 'software' sections will each have their own leadership and organisational roadmap. It will allow the cloud business to develop at a different cadence and to form a "SaaS-like organisational structure around its product and go-to-market processes."
The company said that another benefit would be the separation of high-volume sales from high-touch sales for its journey to market leadership.
Altium has appointed executive director Sergey Kostinsky to the role of president. He will be focused on driving high performance of operations with an emphasis on developing and adopting Altium 365.
Joe Bedewi has stepped down as Altium CFO in order to take on the new role of EVP corporate development and external affairs. This role has been created to capitalise on the Altium 365 market opportunity and the interest in it from the electronics industry.
Altium has appointed Mr Martin Ive as the new CFO, who has led the ASX 200 share's global finance function for over 15 years.
Altium CEO Mr Aram Mirkazemi said: "The launch of Altium 365 marks a significant turning-point in Altium's journey. We are in deep execution mode toward our dominance and transformation goals. This has led to the creation of a new organisational structure to support us on this journey and to drive the high performance required to achieve our goals. I refer to this as Altium's Netflix Moment, which is commonly referred to in the high-tech industry as a hard pivot to the cloud."
The Altium share price rose 0.4% today.
McMillan Shakespeare Limited (ASX: MMS)
The McMillan Shakespeare share price went up after announcing that the class action has been settled.
The class action related to a warranty product business which McMillan Shakespeare acquired in 2015. A significant portion of the relevant period that the claim was when the business wasn't actually owned by McMillan Shakespeare.
The company said that the parties have reached agreement to settle the matter with no admission of liability. The agreement is subject to the approval of the Australian federal court.
McMillan Shakespeare provided a net charge of approximately $2 million plus legal costs in its statutory FY20 result. Management said this would be sufficient to deal with the agreed settlement.
The McMillan Shakespeare share price grew around 4.75%.
