The stock price of one of Australia’s biggest healthcare companies, Cochlear, has crashed, bringing the broader market down with it.
Cochlear has rattled investors by slashing its profit outlook.
Meanwhile, renewed concerns about the Middle East war have outweighed initial optimism over solid corporate earnings, despite US President Donald Trump extending the ceasefire.
Follow the day’s financial news and insights from our specialist business reporters on our live blog.
Disclaimer: this blog is not intended as investment advice.
Key Events
Market snapshot
- ASX 200 : -0.9% at 8,864 points
- Australian dollar: +0.2% to 71.63 US cents
- Wall Street: Dow Jones (-0.6%), S&P 500 (-0.6%), Nasdaq (-0.6%)
- Europe: Stoxx 600 (-0.9%), DAX (-0.6%), FTSE (-1.1%)
- Spot gold: +0.9% to $US4,754/ounce
- Brent crude: -0.2% to $US98.32/barrel
- Iron ore: -0.2% to $US107.05/tonne
- Bitcoin: +1.4% at $US76,782
Prices current at around 12:14am AEST
Live updates from major ASX indices:
ACCC v Woolworths: Objection over witness questioning
Jasper Wells here in Sydney, following the Federal Court case against Woolworths over alleged dodgy discounting.
The ACCC’s witness was asked to leave the courtroom after an objection over terminology from Woolworth’s defence counsel Robert Yezerski SC.
Paul Harker, who was chief commercial officer for Woolworths during the period but has since stepped down, had to leave the courtroom, as the defence argued the prosecution was confusing terms during examination.
“I’m wary of falling into a debate about words that don’t have meaning or have a particular meaning,” Yezerski said.
Yezerski said the prosecution was using muddled terms regarding ‘white ticket pricing’, which is regular pricing, and ‘yellow ticket pricing’, which is for specials.
The war over the meaning of words became a core part of the Coles case earlier in the year.
Corporate Travel Management uncovers further customer over-payments
The woes deepen for Corporate Travel Management (CTM).
The embattled business travel agency — whose shares are currently suspended from trade as they have been since August last year — has released another update into its troubled UK operation.
The company has told investors, via an announcement to the ASX, that it now expects to reverse revenue of up to 118 million pounds ($223 million) for the years up to and including financial year 2025, up from an earlier estimate of 77.6 million pounds released in November.
On top of that, CTM warns that a further 10 million pounds of revenue may need to be reversed in respect of the first half of the current financial year (FY26), depending on discussions with customers. That makes a total of 128 million pounds or $242 million.
That’s a big problem for a company which currently has $115.7 million in cash and $75 million in undrawn debt facilities.
“At current spot rates, expected revenue reversals (less amounts already paid) exceed current cash and liquidity (excluding potential tax recoveries),” observes RBC analyst Wei-Weng Chen.
“An equity raise would not be out of the question in our view.”
In other words, when it figures out how much it owes and finalises long-overdue audited accounts, CTM may have to go cap in hand to shareholders to ask for more cash to pay back the money it owes its customers.
Why does it owe them so much money?
It’s a long story, but basically CTM’s UK operation (and not any of its other regional subsidiaries, according to the company) overcharged customers for hotel bookings.
It thought it had already sorted that issue out through an agreement with the affected customer, but a forensic accounting analysis of its books found “no independent corroboration that the letter agreements with the customer were in fact signed by the customer and the customer has subsequently informed CTM that it has no record of the letter agreements.”
The company terminated the employment of its UK CEO in December last year.
The company’s chairman Ewen Crouch AM says the length of suspension from trade “reflects the board’s determination to fully investigate issues identified in the UK and to address them decisively and completely”.
The company says it hopes to finalise its audited financial year 2025 and first half 2026 financial statements before June 30, leading to the reinstatement of trading in its shares.
Solid Q1 trading update across board for Ampol: analyst
Ampol has delivered a strong March quarter Lytton refining margin (LRM) of $US25.45 per barrel, 31% above VA Consensus at $US19.37 per barrel, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Gordon Ramsay.
Ampol’s month of January LRM was $US8.13 per barrel, he said.
“We estimate the realised month of March LRM was worth of $US50 per barrel,” Mr Ramsay said.
The Lytton refinery has also run well over the March quarter, with refinery production up 10% yoy.”
Mr Ramsay said Ampol’s “solid trading update” was backed up by the higher-than-expected realised quarterly refining margin, which he believed remains “highly supportive”.
“We see the Middle East conflict underpinning a tighter downstream market that supports elevated South East Asian refiner margins over the next 12-18 months from the combined impact of a loss of around 5 mmbpd of refining output (Middle East and Asia) that requires refinery restarts / repairs, renewed crude supply / new sources, and restocking of inventories.”
Ampol’s shares were trading at $33.01 per share, up 4.4%, giving it a market cap of $7.53 billion.
Cochlear helps pull entire share market down
The Cochlear stock price seems to have found some support at about $105 (at 11:45am AEST) after a monumental sell-off.
This chart shows how much it, and the healthcare sector, is dragging down the broader S&P/ASX 200.
Major ASX stock crashes citing Middle East concerns
Cochlear investors are in a world of pain today.
The stock is dragging both the healthcare sector and the broader market down.
At 11:30am AEST its share price had plummeted 38% to $104.50.
The share crash is related to its updated earnings guidance for financial year 2026.
It’s disclosed to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) that its “second half sales growth is now expected to be 2 to 6%, with expectations of continuing softness in developed market cochlear implants and ongoing uncertainty relating to the Middle East.”
The hits are coming from all sides.
The hearing device maker said, “lower demand, and resultant reduction in the production plan, is expected to impact gross margin by around one percentage point as a result of lower overhead recoveries.”
Cochlear has also cited a foreign exchange hit to its bottom line with the USD weakening against the Australian dollar “approx. $25 million after tax.”
🎧Fuelcast: A shipment secured
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Energy Minister Chris Bowen have announced four additional cargoes of diesel have been secured for Australia.
It’s an additional 200 million litres of diesel, coming from South Korea, Brunei and Malaysia.
While this will undoubtedly help Australian industry, what will it cost us in the long-term? And what will this mean for the region?
ABC Business Daily’s presenter Carrington Clarke and our chief business correspondent Ian Verrender will break it down for you here.
Top and bottom movers, by far
Among the best performing individual stocks on the ASX 200 were:
- Treasury Wine Estates, +15.6%
- Ampol, +4.2%
- Sims Ltd, +1.9%
- Karoon Energy, 1.7%
- News Corp, +1.6%
Among the worst performing stocks were:
- Cochlear, -38.8%
- Generation Development Group, -17%
- Bank of Queensland, -8.1%
- Capstone Copper, – 4.8%
- 4DMedical Ltd, -4.7%
Cochlear share price crashes
Cochlear’s share price has dived 37% to $105.75 at 10:45am AEST.
It’s related to its profit guidance.
In a note to the ASX this morning, Cochlear said it was “reducing its FY26 underlying net profit guidance to $290-330 million”.
The medical company had previously told the market that it expected to be at the lower end of its FY26 underlying net profit guidance range of $435-460 million.
That guidance rested on a AUDUSD exchange rate of 66 cents.
Cochlear is a medical device company that designs, manufactures, and supplies implantable hearing devices.
More to come
Risk aversion returns to the markets as peace talks break down: analyst
The mooted second round of talks between the US and Iran have fallen through and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, with the markets driving like Thelma and Louise toward a major supply cliff in global energy markets, according to Kyle Rodda, a market commentator from Capital.com.
“There remains hope that it’s in the interests of both the US and Iran to keep talking and (eventually) strike a peace deal,” Mr Rodda said.
“As much was illustrated by US President Donald Trump’s decision to extend the ceasefire until a ‘proposal is submitted’ by Iran.”
He added that the risk was Iran’s domestic political dynamics and strategic tensions between the US and Iran — not to mention Israel — maintain an inertia towards escalation.
“In one scenario, the stalemate keeps the Strait of Hormuz closed, and the global economy falls over a supply cliff as the 20% of oil taken off the markets starts to really be felt — estimates for this are around the start of May.
“In another, much worse scenario, hostilities flare once more, driving the global economy off the supply cliff, drawing out the conflict and peace process, and imperilling energy infrastructure once again, too.”
Ampol posts strong Q1 performance with supply secured
Ampol has reported “strong and broad-based performance” in the first quarter of this year, adding that its Lytton refinery margin increased to $US25.45 per barrel, driven by the shipping blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.
Total Lytton refinery production for the first quarter was 1,434 million litres, up 10% compared to the same time last year, the company said, noting that the prior year included 10 days of lost production due to Cyclone Alfred.
The energy distributor has also confirmed it has secured its crude oil supply into July and an additional fuel supply with Export Finance Australia.
ASX opens lower
The ASX 200 has started the day lower, down 0.5% to 8,901 points.
The worst-performing stocks in this index are HUB24 Limited and 4DMedical Limited, down 8.3% and 6.2%, respectively.
Market snapshot
- ASX 200 : -0.5% at 8,903 points
- Australian dollar: +0.1% to 71.59 US cents
- Wall Street: Dow Jones (-0.6%), S&P 500 (-0.6%), Nasdaq (-0.6%)
- Europe: Stoxx 600 (-0.9%), DAX (-0.6%), FTSE (-1.1%)
- Spot gold: +0.7% to $US4,743/ounce
- Brent crude: +0.8% to $US99.22/barrel
- Iron ore: -0.2% to $US107.05/tonne
- Bitcoin: +0.8% at $US76,356
Prices current at around 10:11am AEST
Live updates from major ASX indices:
BHP finalises iron ore contract with China
BHP has confirmed it has secured its iron ore supply agreement with China’s state-backed iron ore buyer China Mineral Resources Group (CMRG), ending an approximately 7-month disruption.
In September, CMRG imposed a ban on seaborne iron ore cargoes from BHP due to the contract pricing dispute.
My colleague Stephen Dziedzic and I collaborated on a piece to delve into the matter, if you wish to read more.
DroneShield reports over 120% rise in quarterly revenue
DroneShield has posted quarterly revenue of $74.1 million, up 121% from the same quarter last year, making it the second-highest revenue quarter to date.
The company said it also delivered the highest-ever customer cash receipts in a quarter, at $77.4 million, up 360% from the same period last year.
🎥: ACCC v Woolworths
The ACCC and Woolworths will be back in court today, so stay tuned.
To get you up to speed, competition watchdog is accusing Woolworths of misleading customers over discounts on hundreds of items.
My colleague, David Taylor, has more.
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BHP’s iron ore output rises in March quarter
BHP Group has said its third-quarter iron ore production rose 3%, as strong performance at its Western Australia operations outweighed disruptions due to two tropical cyclones during the period.
The world’s largest listed miner said iron ore output from its WA mine operations on a 100% basis was 69.8 million metric tonnes in the quarter ended March 31, compared to 67.8 million tonnes last year.
This was higher than the Visible Alpha estimate of 68.9 million tonnes.
Reporting with Reuters
South32 revises down manganese outlook
South32 has said the Middle East conflict has resulted in higher costs for global freight and raw materials, as the miner cut its Australia manganese production guidance by 6% for FY2026.
During the March quarter, the firm earned $US121 million ($169 million) in net cash due to stronger aluminium and base metal prices.
The company said it continued to closely monitor the situation in the Middle East while not currently experiencing diesel shortages.
Uncertainty over US-Iran peace talks drives oil up: ANZ
Oil futures rose amid uncertainty over US-Iran peace talks, seeing equity markets fall and bond yields rise, according to ANZ.
The S&P 500 was down 0.6%.
In Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 closed down 0.9% and the FTSE 100 down 1%.
The yield on the US 10y Treasury note rose 3bp to 4.29%.
The active WTI oil future rose 2.8% to $US92.1 per barrel while gold fell 1.6% to $US4,712.9 per ounce.
Trump extends ceasefire as oil rises
US President Donald Trump has announced he is extending the ceasefire with Iran.
The ceasefire was expected to end tomorrow morning AEST.
However, in a social media post, President Trump said he had directed the US military to continue the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.
Crude oil is trading up around 3.8% at $US99.06 per barrel.
