The S&P 500 was up by 16.86points or 0.86% on Friday to 1982.85 points. U.S. stocks ended higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 rallying back above a key technical level, but the advance was not enough to offset recent declines and major indexes closed out their worst week of the past eight. Much of the advance came after a read on second-quarter GDP showed that the economy grew at its fastest pace in 2-1/2 years.

Nike Inc. jumped 12 percent after reporting first-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates. The CBOE Vix volatility index Wall Street’s fear gauge was down more than 6% after hitting its highest level since early August on Thursday. The markets took a much rosier view of the prospects for the US economy. A string of mostly encouraging data releases this week culminated with the news that second quarter GDP growth had been revised upwards from 4.2% to 4.6%, the fastest rate since the fourth quarter of 2011.

 

NIKE Daily Chart (Source – Thomson Reuters)
 
S&P ASX 200was down by68.80 points or 1.28%on Thursday and closed at 5313.40 points. TPG Telecom beat analyst earnings expectations with a pre-tax profit of $364 million. Kathmandu shares rose 3.2 per cent to $2.91 for the week. Nufarm shares surged 15.4 per cent to $4.86 during the week to with the pesticides group painting a more stable outlook for the next year. Australia’s big four banks fell heavily during the week, continuing the selloff in September as investors dumped yield stocks.
Iron oreclosed unchanged at $78.60 on Friday. Gold fell on Friday after a report showed that the US economy expanded last quarter at the fastest rate since 2011. For the week, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 dropped 2.2 per cent, or 119.7 points, to 5313.4, wiping out 2014’s gains. The following stocks will trade ex dividend today: Imperial Pacific, London City Equities, Lycopodium, McMillan Shakespeare, Peet Ltd, Recall Holdings, carsales.com.

TPG Telecom Daily Chart (Source – Thomson Reuters)

The top gainers on ASX 200 were:-

 

2 Dividend Stocks to BUY Right Now
 
Stock of the Day – SEEK (SEK )

SEK released its employment index for August with the data indicating a continuation of the good start to FY15. In August SEK’s new job ads rose 7.9% vs the previous corresponding period but declined 2.3% sequentially versus July. As a reminder new job ads are a good indicator of SEK’s total job ads (the key volume driver for the domestic employment business). On a seasonally adjusted basis new job ads grew 12.0% vs the previous corresponding period and 3.5% vs July.


Group Capex (Source - Company Reports)

We view SEK as a well-managed operator with solid prospects from its domestic employment business with strong growth from its international and education investments but believe this is fully reflected in the share price. SEK has a dominant market position with 64-70% market share of online job ads in the Australian market, however we see emerging threats including those posed by LinkedIn, aggregator sites (INDEED) and even casual job sites (Spotjobs).



SEEK EBITDA (Source - Company Reports)

SEK’s placements strategy could expand the addressable market but we believe the monetization strategy is uncertain. Therefore we expect long term jobs ads to grow on average at 2-3% pa vs 5-10% historically. Emerging markets growth  is set to continue in our opinion (aided by acquisition of the JobStreet assets). We expect SEK to use growing Free Cash Flow to increase ownership in key offshore investments enhancing contributed growth while increasing strategic flexibility to expand further offshore.


SEK Daily Chart (Source - Thomson Reuters)

The growing cash flow coupled with capital management creates options to reinvest and/or return cash to shareholders. SEEK is a well-placed business with improving near term revenue momentum in its domestic operations, a strong learning business and expansive long term international growth opportunities. We believe the stock is expensive at its current price and would review the stock at a later date.
 

 

 
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