The lowdown
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Tabcorp shares slid 0.8 per cent after the company appointed Gillon McLachlan, former boss of the Australian Football League, as its new chief executive. McLachlan will act as an observer under chair Bruce Akhurst until he officially joins the business in August.
Embattled online retailer Booktopia suspended trading in its shares after instigating a trading halt last week. The company said: “Outcomes from the strategic review, including the seeking of additional funding, have not progressed to the extent where it is capable of making an announcement”.
Qantas shares dipped 1.8 per cent on after this masthead revealed the company had been impacted by poor training and understaffing at one of the world’s biggest ground handlers, Swissport.
The Reserve Bank board meets on Tuesday, but no one is expecting it to make a move on interest rates, according to Judo Bank. However, board members are expected to discuss whether further tightening is needed.
“The governor said in recent weeks that the RBA would want to see two quarterly CPI results to confirm any shift in trend in inflation, ruling out a response to recent stronger-than-expected data, including the high April monthly CPI indicator,” wrote Judo Bank economists Warren Hogan and Matthew De Pasquale in a research note to clients.
“With few economists forecasting a hike, and markets not really pricing in any move over the months ahead, the RBA board should make it clear this week if they are getting closer to the point of hiking rates.”
On Friday, the S&P 500 Index slid less than 0.1 per cent – the first time in the week it did not set a record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost the same amount, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.1 per cent to another record high.
In the bond market, US Treasury yields ticked lower after an economic report suggested sentiment among US consumers failed to improve this month.
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Losses were sharper across the Atlantic, where equity markets have been rocked by the results of recent elections in Europe.
Wins by far-right parties have raised pressure on France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who last week called a snap parliamentary election. Investors worry instability could weaken the European Union, stall fiscal plans and hurt France’s ability to pay its debt.
France’s CAC 40 fell 2.7 per cent to bring its loss for the week to 6.2 per cent – its worst performance in more than two years. Germany’s DAX lost 1.4 per cent.
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“The financial adviser mandate BNP Paribas had at one point of time has expired.” That’s BNP Paribas, the world’s ninth-largest bank, which is no longer involved in the financing of the Barossa gas project, in an email to the South Korean group Solutions for Our Climate and this masthead. Meanwhile, the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) has confirmed it has not renewed its loans to SK E&S, the oil and gas subsidiary of Santos’ South Korean Partner SK.
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You would think appointing former AFL boss Gillon McLachlan to head up Tabcorp would be a big win for the gaming company. However, McLachlan will move from running a sporting code with a revenue tailwind to a company employing maximum thrust just to offset structural and cyclical headwinds. Columnist Elizabeth Knight opines on Tabcorp’s big, risky bet on the former king of AFL.