Australian share market opens high as bitcoin smashes through new record

Australian shares have opened on a high as bitcoin breaks a new record and Nine Entertainment forecasts improved growth.

The ASX200 was up 0.6 per cent at the open to 6,721 points and the All Ords rose to 6,965 points (+0.7pc).

Iron ore prices have continued to soar (+0.9pc) to $US156.45 a tonne, leading to miners performing well on Thursday morning.

Many of the best performers this morning were auto parts business Bapcor (+8.9pc), Perenti Global (+8.6pc), and Carsales (4.2pc).

Industrials were also high with Seven Group up 1.1pc and Seek up 1.8pc.

Service Stream dropped a whopping 12 per cent a day after it announced a long-term contract with NBN under a unified field operations agreement.

The contract will see the company provide service activations, operations and maintenance activities to the NBN, including working with fibre to the node, premise, basement and kerb.

The Australian dollar has risen again after yesterday’s 2.5-month high to 75.7 US cents.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones closed down 45 points (0.2pc) while the S&P500 and Nasdaq rose by the same margin, 0.2 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively.

Nine News forecasts higher growth across television network

Nine Entertainment lifted its first-half underlying earnings guidance as trading conditions improve across its television network.

In a trading update on Thursday morning, Nine forecast more than 40 per cent growth in underlying earnings for the six months to December, compared to last month’s guidance of 30 per cent growth.

For the three months to December, Nine forecasts its metro free-to-air TV advertising revenue to be up “almost 20 per cent”, 5 per cent higher than what it forecast last month.

“Nine continues to believe that, given limited visibility of the second-half advertising market, it is not in a position to provide guidance on earnings for the full year.”

Bitcoin smashes new record

Bitcoin has hit an all-time peak of $USD20,800 ($AUD27,477) and has gained more than 170 per cent this year, buoyed by demand from larger investors attracted to its potential for quick gains, purported resistance to inflation and expectations it will become a mainstream payment method.

Smaller cryptocurrencies ethereum and XRP, which often move in tandem with bitcoin, gained 5.4 per cent and 8.1 per cent, respectively.

“Many of our clients have been expecting bitcoin to surpass its all-time high of $20,000 given the recent news from major institutional players like SGX and MassMutual openly endorsing bitcoin,” Scott Freeman, co-founder and partner at trading firm JST Capital told Reuters.

“While this is a major milestone for this nascent asset class, as retail, institutional, and blue-chip investors alike allocate more capital to this space, it would not be surprising to see other coins follow in BTC’s footsteps and for this upward trajectory to be sustained into 2021.”

Bitcoin’s blistering rally has seen a massive flow of coin to North America from East Asia, fuelled by hunger for bitcoin among bigger and compliance-wary US investors.

Buy-now, pay-later continues to grow

The performance of buy-now, pay-later platforms Zip Co and Afterpay have continued to climb.

Zip Co rose 5.8 per cent to $5.9 — a two-week high — after raising $120 million from institutional investors with a further $30 million expected next month from retail investors.

The payment platform is expected to use the funds to enter into the European and Middle Eastern markets.

And Afterpay doesn’t look like it’s slowing down with another 3.4 per cent rise this morning to $118.

Transurban sells off assets

Toll road operator Transurban (+0.8pc) says it will sell 50 per cent of its stake in Transurban Chesapeake assets, including three express lanes and other projects in the Greater Washington Area, to three pension funds for $2.8 billion.

Under the deal, AustralianSuper will own 25 per cent of the assets, while Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and UniSuper will hold stakes of 15 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.

In a statement, Transurban chief executive Scott Charlton said the deal would enable “accelerated growth in North America and Australia, where we see a number of opportunities starting to materialise”.

The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of next year.

ABC/Reuters