Profit reporting season is a nail-biting time for companies and investors, as our Shares Race players experienced this week.
Ansell has been one of the stars of reporting season so far. Its shares have risen 12 per cent during the race week – where the All Ordinaries slipped 0.5 per cent – after investors welcomed the potential sale of its condom business to focus on its industrial clothing and protective gloves operations. The stocks sits in the portfolio of second-placed Money editor Caitlin Fitzsimmons.
Ten Network is also a strong performer off the blocks for Fitzsimmons, a happy accident as she originally picked Technology One but the code TNE was incorrectly input as TEN. Technology One has lost ground.
But it's Ausdrill that edged out Ansell at the top of the leaderboard, rocketing after the mining services company secured a $157 million contract extension at a mine in Ghana. It has helped lift the Australian Financial Review's columnist Phil Baker into first spot. Baker has also picked some companies that have impressed in reporting season so far, including Magellan Financial, Orora Group and Mirvac Group.
The Shares Race this month features four Money readers, all of whom are trying their hands on some relatively unknown small cap and speculative stocks. The small cap space is traditionally more volatile, so there may be a few shakeups in the leaderboard this month.
A bet on investor relations firm Redchip is a standout among the smaller names and reader Mendy Amzalak's pick, but some others have disappointed, including Kingston Resources and South Pacific Resources, which have dragged him into last place. South Pacific is the worst performing stock so far, falling around 15 per cent during the Friday to Thursday race week.
Three Money readers will be looking to recoup their losses from the first week, with David Atkinson and Susan V. Miles joining Amzalak in shrinking their initial $100,000 investment after week one.
Company profit season is set to heat up in week two. No doubt the contestants will be eager for their companies yet to report to prove their faith in them right, though with most of Baker's and Fitzsimmons' companies already reported, they look hard to beat.
