Kogan, gold miners weigh on subdued ASX; Nuix rebounds

It’s been a week to forget for data analytics firm Nuix but the Macquarie-backed tech firm appears, at least, to be heading for a strong finish on Friday.

The ASX newbie was last 7 per cent higher at $4.60, easily outperforming its ASX200 tech contemporaries and leading the wider market for gains.

The company’s rise follows a rocky week that saw the $1.4 billion firm plunge to record lows on the back of a poor trading update.

The company fell by 15.4 per cent on Wednesday when it confirmed it would not meet the business forecasts set out in its IPO documents, just months after its shares soared on their trading debut.

As this masthead reported on Wednesday, chief executive Rod Vawdrey said he was still confident in the company’s performance as customer growth remained strong.

However, Mr Vawdrey warned revenue would be below the prospectus forecasts because of the migration from ‘all you can eat’ fixed-term contracts to consumption and SaaS products. He said this migration meant sell upsell in some cases and delayed when revenue could be booked.

The company finished flat in Thursday’s trade.

Nuix soared more than 50 per cent from its $5.31 IPO price on its sharemarket debut in December, hitting a peak of $11.855 in late January to hit a market cap of about $3.7 billion.

However, the company’s stock fell more than 30 per cent in February when a poor interim result raised doubts about its ability to meet its forecasts.

Shares in biotech firm Dimerix opened 6 per cent higher this morning, hitting the 26.5c mark after the business said it was recruiting European COVID-19 patients into a phase 3 study of its drug candidate DMX-002.

The product is being trialled for chronic kidney disease, as well as in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia.

This morning Dimerix confirmed it had brought 24 new patients (22 from the Netherlands and 2 from the UK) into the phase 3 COVID study.

Dimerix joins a number of homegrown biotechs, including Mesoblast, in the continued quest to develop treatments for coronavirus.

Shares had dropped back to 25.5c at 11.45am AEST.

Shares in Bingo Industries fell this morning after the waste manager told investors a proposed $2.6 billion takeover by CPE Capital and Macquarie was yet to be finalised.

The company slipped 1.5 per cent to $3.19 in late-morning trade after responding to media speculation that a deal had been completed.

In January Bingo revealed it had received a $3.50 per share buyout proposal from CPE Capital and Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets.

Bingo said it understood arrangements between the consortium remained to be finalised, even though it had completed its due diligence.

“While commercial discussions are well advanced, there can be no assurance that any transaction will result from these discussions,” Bingo said in a short media release today.

“Bingo confirms that it will only enter into a transaction on terms that deliver appropriate value for all Bingo shareholders.”

Bingo shares shot up in January following news of the bid, but have not surpassed $3.41 since.

The company operates a fleet of about 330 garbage trucks – mostly in Sydney – with chief executive Daniel Tartak holding an 19.8 per cent stake in the company.

Consumer Reports engineers said they “easily tricked” a Tesla vehicle to drive via its Autopilot feature without anyone in the driver’s seat, just days after a fatal crash in Texas where police said they found no one behind the steering wheel of a Tesla car.

In a test conducted this week, test drivers took several trips on a closed half-mile track in a Tesla Model Y sport utility vehicle, the nonprofit research organisation said in a statement on Thursday (US time).

The vehicle – with Autopilot technology engaged – was able to steer itself along painted lines but at no time displayed a warning that the driver’s seat was empty. The engineer who conducted the test placed a small weighted chain on the steering wheel to simulate the weight of a driver’s hand.

“In our evaluation, the system not only failed to make sure the driver was paying attention, but it also couldn’t tell if there was a driver there at all,” said Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports’ senior director of auto testing.

Fisher was able to reach over from the passenger seat and accelerate the car using a dial on the steering wheel.

Tesla, which reports earnings on April 26, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The company has come under scrutiny for the way it markets Autopilot, which is a driver-assistance feature.

Tesla has rolled out a feature it calls FSD, or Full Self Driving, to early customers who are “beta testing” the technology in advance of a wider release.

Read the full story here 

Bloomberg

Bitcoin declined for the sixth time in seven days, extending losses after President Joe Biden was said to propose almost doubling the capital gains tax for the wealthy.

The slide pushed Bitcoin down as much as 8 per cent to about $US50,500 ($65,500), sending it below the low of $US51,707 reached last Sunday.

The coin reached an all-time peak of $US64,899 last week but tumbled as much as 15 per cent over the weekend in the wake of a false report from an anonymous Twitter account that the US Treasury was cracking down on crypto money laundering.

“One of the biggest things you have to worry about is that the things with the biggest gains are going to be most susceptible to selling,” said Matt Maley, chief market strategist for Miller Tabak + Co.

“It doesn’t mean people will dump wholesale, dump 100 per cent of their positions, but you have some people who have huge money in this and, therefore, a big jump in the capital gains tax, they’ll be leaving a lot of money on the table.”

US investors in the digital asset, which has advanced about 80 per cent since December, already face a capital-gains tax if they sell the cryptocurrency after holding it for more than a year.

But the coin’s been one of the best-performing assets in recent years – anyone who bought a year ago is sitting on a 625 per cent gain.

For investors who bought in April 2019, that gain equals roughly 860 per cent.

The IRS has stepped up enforcement of tax collection on crypto sales.

The agency – which began asking crypto users to disclose transactions on their 2019 individual tax returns – asks taxpayers whether they “received, sold, sent, exchanged or otherwise acquired any financial interest in any digital currency.”

The nervousness among the crypto crowd can be seen in another rash of speculative tweets that popped up, just days after the earlier-debunked conjecture sent the market spiralling.

Bloomberg

Shares in e-commerce firm Kogan.com were down more than 11 per cent in early trade as investors dumped the firm in the wake of a soft quarterly trading update.

Kogan – which soared during the pandemic – fell to an 11-month low $11.02 after it reported that sagging customer demand during the March quarter led to higher-than-expected storage expenses and a reduction in adjusted earnings.

Kogan said it had been increasing its promotional activity to improve its inventory position.

“While short-term trading conditions can fluctuate, we remain focused and committed to our long term vision,” founder and chief executive Ruslan Kogan said.

At the same time, Kogan said it had witnessed price inflation in many products currently being planned for re-order in advance of the peak Christmas trading period – especially those relying on silicone chips and LCD panels.

Together with inflation in international shipping costs, it said this gave it confidence in the quality of its current inventory.

Gross sales across the Kogan Group – which includes Mighty Ape – grew by more than 47 per cent during the quarter, while revenue rose by 65 per cent.

Adjusted earnings fell by more than 24 per cent.

The ASX 200 dipped by as much as 0.3 per cent at the open with BHP and Rio Tinto weighing on the market and tech and energy stocks also in the red.

The benchmark index was last flat at 7057.1, with lenders NAB and ANZ, Telstra, Fortescue Metals, and biotech CSL moving ahead.

Wall Street’s lead was weak after US investors were rattled overnight by news President Joe Biden plans to introduce a new capital gains tax.

Iron ore prices slipped, oil improved, and gold was flat.

Following on from this morning’s announcement from Telstra, TPG Telecom has secured holdings in all available licence areas in the 26 GHz band auction for $108.2 million.

Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Mobile JV Pty Ltd, TPG company acquired 400 MHz millimetre wave 5G spectrum licences for Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, and 600 MHz licenses for Brisbane and all other metropolitan and regional areas.

TPG said the acquisition, which has resulted in a tripling of its total spectrum holdings, will provide significantly increased capacity to deliver 5G fixed wireless services and super-fast 5G mobile services.

Earlier, Telstra announced it had spent $277 million to secure an extra 1000 MHz in the auction across all major cities and regional areas.