Weekend Wrap: Two record highs and every sector green

Hi there!

The ASX 200 hit two clean all-time highs on Wednesday and Thursday, before a flattish close on Friday. Probably some of the best sessions we’ve seen all year! Every sector is now positive in the past month, led by an interesting mix of Energy (+9.9%), Financials (+6.9%), Tech (+6.4%) and Discretionary (+4.7%). Funny how even the most criticised sectors, like Financials (with CBA trading at 30x), just V-shaped back towards all-time highs. Even the battered spec end is catching a bid, with the S&P/ASX Emerging Companies index on a six-day win streak, up 10.1%.

We’ve passed the not-so-serious week of reporting season – where a small handful of reporters (Credit Corp, Pinnacle, Light & Wonder, AMP, REA Group, Nick Scali and ResMed) gave us a taste of what’s to come … some solid numbers, with a lot of volatility.

Let’s dive in.

A third straight deeply bearish result for the week ended 2-Aug, and the widest negative spread (-23.7pp) since the 7-Jun fear spike. Last week's deepening came from more bulls flipping to neutral, while bears slightly eased 1.2pp. At 23.2% bullishness, this is in the 6th percentile, pretty much tied with mid-May for the lowest optimism of the year.

Bullishness has now fallen for four consecutive weeks, and such one-directional decline tends to snap back within a week ...

Over the next three months, do you expect the Australian stock market to be:

• Bullish

• Neutral

• Bearish

REA flexed its pricing power, growing FY26 net profit by 15% to $650.5 million (2% ahead of consensus), despite buy listings being flat year-on-year. Like seriously, flat listings and you’ve somehow grown the bottom line by 15%? Looking ahead, REA Group guided to FY27 new buy listings to be flat or down low single-digits, with July down 2% and combined Syd-Melb listings down a whopping 16%.

Yet analysts still expect the business to be a solid compounder for years to come. Management guided to low double-digit yield growth for FY27, underpinned by an 8% Premiere+ price rise. So even in this challenging real estate market, they’re still able to grow earnings via non-listing levers, that being, pricing power and premium products.

The company is making the most of a not-so-ideal situation, whilst trading at pretty much its cheapest valuation (~25x forward earnings) in over a decade (down from ~50x peaks in 2020-21).

So how did the stock trade on results day? Some sweet, sweet volatility. It opened 3.6% higher, round-tripped to breakeven by 10:07 am, climbed back to 3.5% by 10:33 am, gave it all up again by 11:00 am, then ripped to a session high of 6.0% at 11:40 am before finishing right back near the open.

The bottom line: A quality stock trading at a historically low valuation, a solid FY26 result, mixed guidance. The big picture still looks positive right? But boy oh boy, if you're a long-term investor, best step away from the screen.

Plenty of emerging gold names like Catalyst Metals, Ora Banda Mining and more have crept into the ASX 200 in recent quarters. After running some napkin maths (31-Jul close prices), you'd be surprised just how much gold and copper influence the ASX 200.

• There are 23 pure play gold miners in the S&P/ASX 200

• These gold miners have a collective market cap of ~$259 billion (so probably a bit higher after this week), just shy of one BHP (~$306bn market cap) or approximately 7.6% of the ASX 200 by market cap. That’s a pretty chunky part of the market just for gold, and if gold is down, that means just over ~10% of the index's constituents are down

• There are only seven copper-related stocks in the ASX 200, and only three of which are pure play (SFR, CSC and FFM)

• But copper is playing an increasingly large role in earnings for BHP (~51% of 1H26 EBITDA), Rio Tinto (~29% of 2025 EBITDA), South32 (~85% from base metals zinc, silver, lead and copper) and Evolution Mining (~22% of revenue)

• If we were to carve out the market caps by % of copper earnings contribution, and add in the pure plays, we get a collective market cap of ~$270bn, which is just shy of 8% of the ASX 200 by market cap 

The bottom line: Gold and copper now make up roughly 15% of the S&P/ASX 200, more than real estate (~5.8%), healthcare (~5.5%) and telcos (~4.0%) combined.

I’m really, really keen to see how dividend stocks trade this reporting season (as we all know, tax reform lifts the appeal of franked income).

Charter Hall Retail REIT (CQR, not CHC) was one of the lower-profile names to deliver a solid FY26, and resounding FY27 beat.

• Operating EPS up 4% to 26.4 cents vs. 26 cents ests (2% beat)

• Full-year dividend up 3.3% to 25.5 cents per share

• NTA up 8.4% to $5.03 vs. ~$4.23 share price, driven by a 4.9% portfolio valuation uplift

• Occupancy at 99.1% with positive specialty leasing spreads of 4.1%

• FY27 operating EPS of no less than 27.3 cents (ahead of the 25 cps ests), and distributions of 26.4 cents per share (also a solid beat)

The earnings call also contained some slick commentary, including:

• On strategy: "CQR has now curated the portfolio to its target mix of approximately 50% high quality shopping centers and 50% high quality net lease retail assets", with the net lease book "free of any material capital expenditure"

• On the September CPI print: a key tailwind, with Ben Ellis noting "82% of our portfolio has got its rent review in the net lease sector of this upcoming September CPI print, which is going to be really strong"

• On the demand backdrop: "Australia's population is expected to grow by more than 1 million people over the next three years, while new retail supply is forecast to reach a 30 year low", which Ellis sees as "a potential tailwind" in anchor lease negotiations

If you're a trader, the stock opened 1% higher, finished the session up 4%, if you're a chartist, it's just broken out of a year-long base to all-time highs and if you're an investor, well, the commentary sounds nice and guidance topped analyst forecasts.

Here are some of this week's best reads from our friends over at Livewire.

• A decade or so of real house prices ranging sideways: Shane Oliver has national prices down 0.7% in July and tips a 7% top-to-bottom fall, with rate hikes and the investor tax changes doing the damage. Houses look 38% overvalued nationally against 8% for units.

• Buy Hold Sell: 5 durable ASX stocks for uncertain times. Analysts from IML and Wilson Asset Management were split on Qantas, James Hardie and SGH, with rates the sticking point on each. Their own picks were BlueScope and Cleanaway.

• Why Rudi Filapek-Vandyck thinks 60% of the ASX could finally have its moment: Rudi sees leadership rotating to REITs and domestics as rates turn, with AI now the question every result must answer. He likes TechnologyOne, Pro Medicus, CBA, Cuscal and Breville, and is still holding just under 20% cash.

• Why a will isn't enough: With $5 trillion moving between generations, Shaw and Partners found only 42% of clients have a clear transfer plan. Adam Dawes argues for a letter of intent and starting the transfer while you're alive.

Ken Griffin is about to pick up another cents to the dollar AI portfolio.