The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) finished 0.1% higher today to 6,058 points.
Here are some of the highlights from the ASX today:
Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT)
The buy now, pay later (BNPL) business announced its FY21 first quarter update today.
It said that it generated strong growth with underlying sales increasing 115% to $4.1 billion. This was also 9% higher than the underlying sales achieved in the fourth quarter of FY20.
Afterpay said that its annual run rate in the first quarter reached $16.4 billion.
Merchant revenue margins remained in line with what was achieved in FY20. The trend of lower gross losses continued in the first quarter with customer default payments remaining below historical rates in all regions. This resulted in net transaction losses as a percentage of underlying sales also remaining low.
As a result of the above factors, Afterpay boasted that its net transaction margins have remained strong in the first quarter.
Active customers increased globally by 98% to 11.2 million, up from 5.7 million in the first quarter of FY20. The US now has over 6.5 million customers. Afterpay said that there has been an 18% increase of the daily average number of new customers in the month to date (in October) compared to the average for the first quarter of FY21.
Active merchants also grew strongly, up by 70% to 63,800. Afterpay said that a number of major enterprise retailers launched in October.
The company said that the rollout of in-store Afterpay in the US is progressing well with a number of high profile retailers now live in open stores across the country. The launch into Canada has also progressed well with a number of large retailers now live. Some retailers include Aritzia, Lush, Ardene and Goop.
The Afterpay share price went up by more than 7% today.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ)
Yesterday evening the big four ASX 200 bank announced a number of hits to its FY20 second half profit. The combined impact is an after-tax charge of $528 million, which will impact its CET1 capital ratio by 5 basis points.
Remediation charges relating to the Hayne royal commission in the second half of 2020 will be $188 million after tax, largely relating to an acceleration of remediation programs and product reviews across the business.
Changes to how ANZ amortises its software resulted in a $138 million after-tax charge being recognised in the second half of FY20. These changes were made to reflect the increasingly shorter 'useful' life of various software assets with rapidly changing technology and business requirements.
The remaining charges of $202 million after tax include the writedown of goodwill in ANZ's Pacific business, the impacts of AASB 9 accounting changes on ANZ's investment in PT Panin and restructuring charges.
The ANZ share price fell 1.7% today.
Coles Group Ltd (ASX: COL)
The ASX 200 retailing giant released its update for the first 13 weeks of FY21.
It said that its supermarkets grew total sales by 9.8% to $8.46 billion. This was driven by comparable sales growth of 9.7%, with significant growth from Victoria due to the COVID-19 restrictions. Excluding Victoria, comparable sales growth was 7.7%. Online sales grew by 73%.
Total liquor sales was 17.4% higher to $852 million. Again there was strong comparable sales growth, with a rise of 17.8%.
Coles Express sales went up by 10.3% to $291 million, largely thanks to comparable sales growth of 10.2%.
Overall, the Coles business delivered total sales growth of 10.5%.
Coles CEO Steven Cain said: "We have made further progress executing our strategy to ensure the long-term growth of Coles, particularly in digital and online. This is despite significant COVID related restrictions in Victoria related to our main store support centre, our distribution centres, our meat suppliers and of course, our customers".
The Coles share price went up by 2.7% today.
