That's it for the Markets Live blog for today.
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We'll be back tomorrow morning, have a good evening.
At the end of trading the S&P/ASX200 was up 38.2 points to close at 6265.8. Volumes were slightly higher than yesterday.
The biggest rises were Lynas, up 11.2 per cent, Treasury Wine up 5.6 per cent, Ausdrill up 4.9 per cent, Estia Health up 3.8 per cent, and Ansell up 3.5 per cent. This is a mixed basket of industries, showing the market sentiment had no clear economic direction today.
Treasury Wine was up on news that wine exports had jumped 20 per cent to $2.7 billion. and Ansell had a favourable report from UBS analysts, expecting it to exceed consensus expectations when it reports full year results.
Meanwhile Afterpay's rapid rise has slowed down with the stock coming off 3.8 per cent, or 57 cents, to close at $14.47.
And Kogan closed 11.8 per cent lower at $5.84 after missing analyst expectations at its quarterly update.
And the real estate sector was down due to a 1.5 per cent decline in GPT.
Ansell shares are heading towards a strong finish, currently up 3.5 per cent at $28.85, and hitting three-year highs.
UBS analyst released a report this morning increasing their 12 month price target to $27.45 up from $25.
They believe Ansell (ASX:ANN) will very likely surprise investors "to the upside" at its August 20 end of year results.
This is because of macro trends, such as higher manufacturing in the United States, which drives demand for industrial gloves and protective clothing. About half of Ansell's revenue comes from the United States, where the number of manufacturing employees has risen from about 12.4 million last June to nearly 12.7 million this year.
Also the cost of Ansells raw materials, such as latex was lower in the second half of the fiscal year.
UBS expects Ansell to ''over-deliver'' in FY18
Photo: BloombergThe Australian dollar is heading down to US72 cents, according to currency strategist at Western Union Business Solutions, Steven Dooley.
"In an environment where the Fed is raising rates and the RBA is on hold, based on market expectations at least until 2020, our year-end target for the Aussie is 72.00."
Mr Dooley sees critical chart support at 73.20, tipping a break below to possibly see the Aussie easing to 71.50.
Full story on the bearish outlook for the Aussie dollar here.
As we head towards market close the ASX 200 is up 0.56 per cent, which is a softer rise compared to regional markets. Hong Kong's Hang Seng is up 1.49 per cent, while the Shanghai CSI 300 is up 1.7 per cent.
The Nikkei in Japan is also up slightly, 0.57 per cent.
Among Australian stocks the materials sector is out in front, up 1.34 per cent, with metals and mining leading the charge. Heavyweights BHP and Rio are both up, 1.8 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively. But rare-earths miner Lynas is the biggest riser, up 11.2 per cent to $2.38.
Health is also up with gains of 4.05 per cent for Ansell and 4.15 per cent for Estia Health.
Kogan stocks remain in the red this afternoon, down nearly 11 per cent at $5.90. It did reach an intra-day low of $5.64 about half an hour ago.
Investors are disappointed the online retailer did not meet high expectations in a trading update released on Tuesday.
While earnings are expected to rise 90 per cent, consensus was that growth would be around 117 per cent.
Consensus forecast for full-year earnings is $27.1 million, but the figures released today suggest it will be closer to $23.75 million.
Full story by Sue Mitchell here.
It has also been noted that Ruslan Kogan himself has been off-loading shares recently, selling 4.5 million shares at $7 each in mid-June. Fellow director David Shafer also sold 1.5 million shares at the same price.
We've heard of unlimited calls and texts and data, but often that 'unlimited' data is capped and slows down after a while.
Now Telstra has released a new mobile unlimited data plans, however, the problem with this new plan is that its very expensive, according to telco reporter Jennifer Duke.
Telstra shares are flat today against a rising market and trading at $2.75.
Telstra chief executive Andy Penn has launched his fightback strategy with one of the most expensive unlimited data mobile phone plans on the market, at $199 a month for uncapped speeds.
While industry sources had speculated Australia's biggest telecommunications company would lower prices to attract budget-sensitive customers in the highly competitive mobile space, Mr Penn instead unveiled an 'Ultimate' plan on Tuesday morning that will set users back $4776 over a 24-month contract.
Ansell shares have reached the highest price in three years at $29.11, up $1.23 on yesterday's close. This rally is helping to push up the health sector today to make it the best performer so far.
The last time Ansell shares were this high was April 2015, when they reached $30.21.
Ansell hasn't released any news recently and the stocks are widely held by hedge funds and institutional investors.
About 12 months ago Ansell completed the sale of its condom business (or what it called the sexual wellness division) for about $US365 million and since then has concentrated on specialist gloves.
Chief executive Magnus Nicolin told analysts in February that the company will benefit from corporate tax cuts in the United States. It also bought back about 4.5 million shares this financial year.
Full year results are out on August 20.
Afterpay's recent rally has ended with the stock trading at $14.93 this afternoon, or 0.73 per cent down on yesterday's close. The stock has risen more than four dollars in the past week.
Today's Rear Window column by Myriam Robin in the AFR sheds some light on why the brakes are being applied:
As Afterpay's share price rose 37.8 per cent over the past few three trading days on positive US expansion figures, the Treasury Department on Friday quietly released draft legislation that could bring the Australian operations of the soaring no-interest lender under the regulation of ASIC.
Strangely though, the only group that appears to have noticed is the Consumer Action Centre. It put out a press release on Friday applauding the new legislation, which it said would target "unregulated short-term credit like buy-now pay-later", the sector in which Afterpay is the most successful provider.
The legislation, which will now go through a period of open consultation, proposes to formally institute a recommendation of the Financial System Inquiry that called for a product intervention power be given to ASIC allowing it to intervene when there is a significant risk of consumer detriment (as opposed to the current system, which allows it to get involved after the case). The government proposes to allow ASIC to use this power broadly, including over products ASIC doesn't currently regulate that are "functionally similar irrespective of the legal basis on which the provider offers those products". Short-term credit (that less than 62 days, or two months in duration) is explicitly given as an example of such products.
When we called around, there was some dissension, however, about whether the legislation would capture Afterpay. The company, founded by the increasingly wealthy Nick Molnar and Anthony Eisen, is unique in its model even within the buy-now pay-later sector. Its two-month loans don't charge interest, and are free for consumers if they pay on time (otherwise, there are late fees). However, the proposed legislation can be read to collapse these distinctions by its reference to functional similarity. And it seems to strike a balance in that Afterpay wouldn't be regulated like a regular lender, but it would give ASIC the power to intervene if it feared customers were being harmed.
Even if there is a bit of uncertainty surrounding this, for the $3.2 billion company, now one of Australia's largest by valuation, it strikes us as rather odd we haven't seen more discussion of this. Though maybe it's hard to hear the slow grinding of policy formation over the sound of investors popping the champagne corks.
The media focus may be on beleaguered AMP but Commonwealth Bank has had to pay $119 million in compensation to 'fee for no service' victims, far more than any other financial institution.
In all, the four big banks and AMP have paid $215 million in refunds and interest to 306,000 customers for failing to provide advice while charging them ongoing fees.
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