Greetings and welcome to HotCopper’s the ASX Today for Tuesday of Week 22. I’m Jonathon Davidson, and I might have made a mistake in yesterday’s afternoon wrap-up when I failed to mention the United States wasn’t trading overnight; my apologies there. We did get some green shoots in Europe overnight, stocks in that jurisdiction touching two-month highs, but it wasn’t to last.
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That’s because the peace memorandum of understanding, whatever that means, failed to last more than 24 hours. This morning, we got fresh U.S. strikes on targets in Iran; oil prices are on the way back up, and I don’t think anybody’s too surprised.
Without a confident Wall Street to inspire – despite record highs closer to home in Japan on Monday – the ASX is back below 8,700pts on Tuesday, and by this point, that’s a familiar story. As I’ve said more than once recently, it’s hard to know where exactly the buck will stop.
It could very well be the next most exciting thing that happens on the ASX is an Australian prospectus for the SpaceX IPO listing, which we now know could eventuate, given CommSec is gearing up as the so-called lead retail broker.
For Elon Musk, he’s probably hungry for Australia’s $4 trillion superannuation market, worth about as much as SpaceX itself. Note that SpaceX’s money is coming from selling computer server power to Anthropic to power its AI products, and not anything to do with space.
Anyway. That’s enough about that, and there’s not much else to say, but let’s look around the traps at home. Pointedly, the ASX itself – as in ASX Limited, the company that operates the stock market software – fell -10% on Tuesday after it upgraded its guidance into FY28, flagging higher-than-expected costs to replace its aging trading software, which was last year the subject of an ASIC lawsuit. The company also got a new CEO about two weeks ago.
Looking elsewhere, embattled Mexican fast food player Guzman Y Gomez had won support last Friday when it exited the U.S., suggesting a lower cost base, but now it’s facing a class action from up to 500 staffers who were let go when the company closed its Chicago store. They want 60 days of back pay, and investors are nervous.
Finally, in happier news, still heavily troubled online retailer Kogan shot up Tuesday when it revealed higher-than-expected revenue growth of late to the tune of around +18% as active customers grow in line with “customer engagement” and the profitability situation with its Mighty Ape brand looks to be improving. After a rough few years, Kogan is looking better, but far off its $13 highs during the lockdown years.
That’s The ASX Today for Tuesday, I’m Jon Davidson, have a great night.
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