Major companies continue to report booming profits during the pandemic, with real estate listings company Domain handing back JobKeeper and appliance maker Breville profiting off working-from-home arrangements.

Reporting season was in full swing today with a long-list of companies announcing results.

Those disclosing results were Breville, Brambles, real estate company Charter Hall, Domain, Dexus, Magellan, Shopping Centres Australasia, SG Fleet and Sims. BHP will also release its results just after the ASX closes.

Domain to hand back JobKeeper

Domain banked a net profit of $34.2 million. That is a 50 per cent rise on the previous period.

Overall, Domain took in $289 million in the financial year, which was also a 10 per cent rise on the previous period's revenue.

Domain, which is majority owned by media giant Nine, has been growing as the property market climbed new heights during COVID.

In March, it reached a new audience record, with 9.6 million viewings across print and digital.

After announcing its growth and "increased confidence in the property market outlook", the company said it will hand back JobKeeper wage subsidies it received last year from the federal government.

That will see it return $5.7 million to the ATO.

It comes after sustained pressure on companies to hand back the subsidy if they reported an increased profit. The ABC revealed recently that $4.6 billion had been taken by companies that saw profits grow.

Meanwhile, appliance maker Breville cracked $1 billion in sales for the first time.

It occurred as people stuck at home during lockdown or working from home bought coffee machines and other kitchen appliances.

It's overall profit is up 42 per cent to $90 million.

As well as coffee machines, Breville also sells kitchen appliances like slow cookers and owns the Nespresso coffee pod brand.

Breville saw sales growth in Europe, after it expanded its sales into France, Portugal and Italy. It also pushed further into the US market, although its bricks and mortar expansion there was disrupted by COVID.

Most of its sales growth in the Asia-Pacific was in the first half of the financial year, as working from home patterns were entrenched over Australia's winter during COVID.

Breville's bottom line was helped by higher prices. It promoted its more expensive range, and spent less on advertising.

It expects the next 12 months to be a "transitional" year.

That's based on assuming people will be spending less time at home in the kitchen, as the world opens back up again as people are vaccinated.

Despite some positive profit results, the ASX 200 was losing ground on Tuesday.

US markets had mixed results overnight, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 both up 0.3 per cent, but the tech-laden Nasdaq down 0.2 per cent.

At 12:30pm AEST, the ASX 200 was trading down 0.8 per cent.

The local benchmark took a slight hit on Monday with a loss of 0.6 per cent, down to 7,583 points.

The Australian dollar is down 0.5 per cent to 73.35 US cents.

Westpac looks to return cash

Westpac is considering handing money back to its shareholders when it reports its full-year results in a few months, saying it has "excess capital and franking credits".

The bank's third quarter update revealed that both "stressed assets" and 90-day mortgage delinquencies were down 9 basis points compared to the previous quarter, although 1.11 per cent of Westpac home loan customers were at least 90 days behind in their repayments.

However, Westpac said there have been a "relatively small number" of new COVID repayment deferrals as a result of the latest lockdowns (to August 11), with around 3,700 mortgage and 725 business customers putting repayments on hold, with a total value of around $1.6 billion.

The report shows about 12,000 customers with mortgages valued around $5 billion are receiving hardship assistance, such as a reduction or deferral of repayments.

Westpac revealed it had 199 properties in possession in the June quarter, up slightly from the previous three months but down from 256 in the September quarter of last year.

The bank also said it would account for the alleged fraud of nearly $300 million from Westpac by Forum Finance in the third quarter. The bank is currently engaged in a court case against Forum Finance and its owners, including football identity Bill Papas.

Despite flagging an increased return to shareholders, Westpac was following the rest of the banking sector and the ASX lower, falling 1.7 per cent to $25.34 by 10:45am AEST.

Santos set to takeover PNG energy firm

Oil and gas producer Santos said it looked forward to signing its agreement to take over Papua New Guinea energy firm Oil Search in coming weeks.

Santos said it saw record production and record sales for the half-year as the global economy bounced back from lockdowns.

The firm made $482 million for the six months to the end of June.

That's after asset sales, and a big improvement from the same time last year, when it had to write down projects.

Investors will get an interim dividend of 55 US cents a share.

Tesla loses 5pc on crash investigation

The biggest story rocking the Nasdaq was news that US authorities are going to investigate Tesla over its Autopilot cars crashing into emergency vehicles.

Elon Musk's Tesla dropped 5 per cent on that news.

One of the world's biggest companies could face a recall of its cars if the probe does not go its way.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that since January 2018, it had identified 11 crashes in which Tesla models "have encountered first responder scenes and subsequently struck one or more vehicles involved with those scenes".

The vehicle safety agency said it had reports of 17 injuries and one death in those crashes.

One of those includes the December 2019 crash of a Tesla Model 3 that left a passenger dead after the vehicle collided with a parked fire truck in Indiana.

Tesla has built 765,000 Autopilot cars since 2014 in the US.

After investigating, NHTSA could opt to take no action, or it could demand a recall, which might effectively impose limits on how, when and where Autopilot operates. 

Any restrictions could narrow the competitive gap between Tesla’s system and similar advanced driver assistance systems offered by established carmakers.

Mr Musk, one of the world's richest people, has repeatedly defended Autopilot.

In April he tweeted that "Tesla with Autopilot engaged now approaching 10 times lower chance of accident than average vehicle."

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