ASX 200 Live Today - Wednesday, 12th August

Welcome to our live ASX coverage for Tuesday, August 12. Expect a high volume of posts pre-market and more periodic updates throughout the day. We'll be wrapping the blog up around 2:00 pm AEST. Let us know how we can make it even better.

Reporting season is heating up and we've got you covered. Our reporting season calendar has over 250 stocks plus earnings and dividend estimates.

Suncorp lifts underlying earnings 4.5% and returns capital via special dividend and buyback

[9:05 am] The insurer beat on cash earnings despite natural hazard costs running $254 million above allowance, funding a 10 cent special dividend and a fresh buyback.

• Cash earnings of $1.04bn vs $1.03bn ests (in line)

• NPAT down 44% to $1.03bn vs $1.01bn ests (2% beat), with the FY25 figure including the gain on sale of Suncorp Bank and NZ Life

• GWP of $15.41bn vs $15.47bn ests (in line)

• Underlying insurance trading result up 4.5% to $1.64bn, with the underlying ITR at 11.8% versus 11.9%

• Natural hazard costs ran $254m above the $1.77bn allowance, with more than $10bn paid out across 120,000 claims

• Final dividend of $0.52 per share plus a $0.10 special dividend, fully franked, for a 70.5% payout ratio, with a further $250m buyback planned for FY27

• FY27 GWP growth guided to 3-5% with underlying ITR expected in the top half of the 10-12% range

Company page: Suncorp (SUN)

CBA edges past estimates with 7% lift in cash profit

[8:57 am] Australia's biggest bank grew at or above system across all five core domestic product categories, a first for any major bank in 15 years.

• Cash NPAT up 7% to $10.98bn vs $10.86bn ests (1% beat)

• Statutory NPAT up 8% to $10.91bn

• Net interest margin up 3 bps to 2.05%

• Operating expenses up 6% to $13.76bn

• Loan impairment expense up 9% to $788m as home and personal loan arrears rose to 0.73% and 1.72% on cost-of-living pressures

• Final dividend of $2.70 per share fully franked

• Total FY26 dividend up 4% of $5.05, at a 77% payout ratio

• Return on equity rose to 14.0%, with investment spend up 6% to $2.43bn and guided to hold at $2.4bn in FY27

Cash profit was broadly in-line or fractionally above most analyst estimates, NIM varied (Morgan Stanley at 2.06%, Morgans at 2.04%), FY26 dividend also in-line or slightly ahead (Morgan Stanley at $5.05, Morgans at $4.95).

Company page: Commonwealth Bank (CBA)

Today's reporters: AGL, CBA, Suncorp and more

[8:43 am] Here's a list of today's key reporters, which we'll dig into in a moment.

• AGL Energy (AGL)

• Bravura Solutions (BVS)

• Commonwealth Bank (CBA)

• Dexus Industria REIT (DXI)

• Kelly Partners (KPG)

• Suncorp (SUN)

US-Iran standoff drags on as oil disruptions set to persist into 2027

[8:42 am] Mixed peace signals kept Brent near US$89 a barrel as Washington flagged prolonged supply losses and fresh refinery attacks tightened the diesel market.

• Brent up 1.6% to US$89.29 as traders weighed conflicting signals, with Pakistan's defence minister saying the two sides are close to "some sort of an arrangement" even as Trump hardened his stance and demanded Iran pay reparations

• EIA now expects supply disruptions of about 600,000 barrels a day through end-2027, with oil through the Strait of Hormuz averaging 4.9m barrels a day in Q2 versus 21.6m in Q4 2025

• EIA lifted 2026 gasoline and diesel price forecasts by 3.7% and 5.4% and raised its 2027 retail gasoline forecast by 6.5%, expecting flows to take until early 2027 to return to pre-war levels

• Hormuz traffic fell to six vessels on Monday against a 10-day average of about 11, versus 130-140 ships in pre-war days

• European diesel futures jumped more than 10% as refinery attacks in Libya and Russia tightened supply, with Saudi Aramco delaying the restart of its 400,000-barrel-a-day Jazan plant to late August after a Houthi strike

• Iran and Oman talks on reopening the strait are said to be advanced, though officials stress any Oman deal stays separate from a broader closure agreement

Fed's Hammack says multiple rate hikes may be needed to tame inflation

[8:41 am] The Cleveland Fed chief argued one move alone would do little, ahead of Wednesday's pivotal CPI print.

• Hammack said a single 25bp move probably does little for the economy, so bringing inflation to 2% likely needs "some number" of hikes, though she declined to prejudge the total

• She was one of three officials who dissented against last month's decision to hold rates steady, favouring a hike

• Argued rates are not "meaningfully restricting" the economy and she does not see inflation returning to target on its own

Supermicro and CoreWeave rally after hours on AI demand signals

[8:37 am] Two bellwethers for AI infrastructure spending both beat expectations, sending shares sharply higher after the close.

Supermicro (+6.5% after hours):

• Revenue of US$11.1bn vs US$11.55bn ests (4% miss)

• Adjusted EPS of US$1.70 vs US$0.96 ests (77% beat), up 315% year-on-year

• Gross margin of 17.5%, up 800bps year-on-year, though management flagged around 75% of the sequential improvement came from contract deferrals into Q1'27 with lower tariffs and inventory reserves driving the rest

• Adjusted EBITDA of US$1.7bn vs US$655m ests (160% beat) and net income of US$1.2bn vs US$636m ests (89% beat)

• FY27 revenue guided to US$65-72bn vs US$52.5bn ests (30% above at midpoint), citing more than US$60bn in new orders and record backlog

CoreWeave (+13.8% after hours):

• FY26 revenue guided to US$12.4-13.2bn vs US$12.63bn ests (in line at midpoint)

• FY26 adjusted operating income guided to US$960m-1.15bn vs US$893m ests (18% beat at midpoint)

• FY26 capex guided to US$35-39bn vs US$33.3bn ests (11% above at midpoint)

• Backlog of US$104bn, up 46% year-on-year, with contracted power lifted to 4.2GW from 3.7GW at Q2-end and July pricing up around 25% across SKUs

• Targeting active power above 8GW by 2030 and year-end annualised run-rate revenue of US$18.5-19.5bn

Intel upsizes share sale to US$20bn on AI demand

[8:33 am] The chipmaker lifted its raise by a third after drawing more than US$100bn in demand for the offering.

• Priced at US$95 per share, a 6.5% discount to Friday's close, after targeting US$15bn when announced Monday

• Proceeds build cash for a bigger AI role as Intel struggles to compete with Nvidia and AMD in AI processors and funds its outsourced manufacturing push

• Deal underscores resilient demand across the AI supply chain, following SK Hynix's US$26.5bn ADR debut and Alphabet's raise of up to US$85bn

Source: Bloomberg

Citadel Securities flags a re-leveraging setup for equities

[8:33 am] Systematic buyers are poised to rebuild stock exposure after a record unwind, with buybacks and retail flows adding fuel.

• Leveraged ETF assets fell nearly 42% to US$154bn last month from US$218bn at end-June, with the sharpest drop in semiconductors, where leveraged ETFs now hold about US$31bn

• Citadel Securities says the leverage reset has largely run its course, with the next meaningful mechanical flow more likely re-leveraging than deleveraging

• Companies are authorised to buy back more than US$1trn in stock, the largest on record at this point in the calendar

• Households are logging US$7.5bn a day in passive ETF inflows, with individual traders turning net buyers last week

• Goldman Sachs' prime desk saw the largest hedge fund buying since November 2020, driven by short covering, while Morgan Stanley noted funds rebuilding AI-linked exposure beyond what was unwound in June and July

Source: Bloomberg

CTAs pile into record bond short ahead of US CPI

[8:32 am] Trend-following funds hold their largest-ever underweight in global bonds just as this week's inflation data threatens a sharp reversal.

• Commodity trading advisers tripled their underweight bond positions at end-July versus two weeks earlier and have held steady since, per UBS

• CTAs stand to gain or lose about US$300m per one-basis-point move in 10-year yields, the biggest such exposure since UBS records began in 1990

• Rate swaps put September Fed hike odds at roughly a coin toss, making Wednesday's CPI print pivotal for positioning

Source: Bloomberg

Good morning!

[8:30 am] ASX 200 futures are down 40 pts (-0.43%). Here's what happened overnight:

• Wall Street faded a positive open to finish mostly lower for a second session, with the US-Iran standoff and tonight's CPI print keeping buyers sidelined

  • S&P 500 up 0.19% in early trade, finished the session (0.32%) lower

  • Nasdaq down (0.60%), Dow down (0.34%), Russell 2000 up 0.32%

  • Equal-weight S&P 500 eked out a 0.21% gain to close at record highs

• Brent gained 1.6% to US$89.3 a barrel, as Trump added compensation demands to Hormuz talks, though Pakistani negotiations believe "some sort of an arrangement" is nearing

• Intel raised $20bn in an upsized capital raising, while asset managers like Blackstone, Apollo and KKR rallied on Nvidia's AI financing coalition