Stocks across Asia are trading higher in early trade on Monday, continuing the rebound seen in European and US markets on Friday.

The TOPIX in Tokyo, the KOSPI in South Korea and Straits Times Index in Singapore are all up between 0.3 to 0.6 per cent. Mainland Chinese markets have also opened higher, sitting up 0.4 to 1.1 per cent.

by David Scutt

Westpac is the latest major bank to experience a lift in the number of customers getting into financial trouble, reporting higher mortgage arrears in the June quarter and more properties in possession. In a quarterly update, the banking giant said the share of its mortgages with customers more than 90 days behind on their loan payments was 0.9 per cent, up from 0.82 per cent in the March quarter.
The number of consumer properties Westpac had repossessed also increased, from 482 to 550. The bank said the trend, which rival banks have also reported, reflected the weaker housing market, which makes it more difficult to customers with financial problems to sell their home to pay back the bank.
Westpac also said the growing proportion of principal and interest loans, which have higher monthly costs, was also contributing to the trend.
The bank said delinquencies had increased in NSW, to 0.71 per cent of its portfolio, though this was still lower than the national average. Most of the properties in possession were in Western Australia and Queensland, it said.

"Higher stress in portfolio combined with softness in property market contributing to an increase in the time it takes to sell a property have contributed to the rise in delinquencies and properties in possession," a presentation from the bank said.

by Clancy Yeates

Mining reporter Darren Gray has finished BlueScope Steel's media call, and reports chief executive Mark Vassella called domestic energy prices a "tragedy" for our manufacturing sector.

"You think about a $1 billion investment that we're making in North America, at a third of the energy costs that we incur in Australia, that's a tragedy quite frankly for Australian manufacturing. So we'll continue to push and agitate for more supply and more suppliers in this country to try and get our energy costs back to some sort of level of international competitiveness," he said.

BlueScope this morning unveiled a 17 per cent rise in underlying profit for 2018-19, but also forecast a fall in its underlying earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) in the first half of the new financial year of 45 per cent, which it attributed to "weaker commodity steel spreads" at North Star and at its Australian Steel Products business.

The steelmaker said this was only the short term outlook, but investors sold off BlueScope shares from the opening with the stock down 6.8 per cent to $11.37 shortly after 10.30am. Earlier in the morning, the stock was down as much as 12.1 per cent to $10.88 before regaining some of the losses.

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Shares in SmartGroup are up nearly 23 per cent this morning to $11.11 after falling as low as $8.94 during last week's sell-off. Last week the company delivered a strong first half result and beat some analyst expectations, leading them to expect earnings upgrades in the future. Coinciding with today's rise is a Citi Equities report saying "We reiterate our 'buy' call with increased vigour given the resiliency shown in first half of 2019...".

"SmartGroup reported first half 2019 earnings of $58.8 million, up 6 per cent versus the previous corresponding period, driven predominantly by organic growth, but the 'devil is in the detail'," Citi's team writes in a note to clients. They have a price target of $11.83 on the stock.

"While the total organic growth for first half was just 0.7 per cent, this is a net figure, representing strong organic growth from customer wins of 4.3 per cent, offset by client losses of -3.6 per cent...We are forecasting 2019 organic growth of 20,580 packages on a gross basis, implying an annual gross organic growth rate of 6 per cent, which sounds high, but note that 71 per cent of that has already been achieved."

Meanwhile Morgan Stanley analysts expect the company to deliver net revenue of $248 million in 2019, up from $242 million in 2018, with flat earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation of $112 million. They have a $10 price target. And Morgans' analyst Scott Murdoch increased his price target from $9.50 up to $10.15, saying "in our view there is upside risk over the next 12-18 months from potential acquisitions or capital management and we upgrade to Add".

Platform provider Netwealth has reported a full year post-tax profit of $36 million, up 24 per cent from a year earlier, thanks to climbing inflows and funds under administration (FUA). Revenue jumped 15.1 per cent to $98.8 million as disruption continues in the investment industry following the banking royal commission. Shares are up 5.2 per cent to $7.31.

Continued growth in FUA to $23.3 billion was made up of $5.4 billion in net inflows and $1.1 billion in market movement. Netwealth told shareholders to expect FUA net inflows of $7 billion in 2019-20 after growing $10 billion in past two years.

Netwealth reported a fully franked dividend of 6.6 cents per share in the second half beating analyst expectations for a dividend of 6.2 cents.

by Stephen Miles

Shares in Beach Energy are up 5.4 per cent this morning to $1.90 after it announced an 86 per cent increase in underlying post-tax net profit to $560 million. It declared a final dividend of 1¢ per share.

It produced 29.4 million barrels of oil in 2018-19 from fields in Australia and New Zealand, up 55 per cent on the previous year, and expects to produce slightly less oil in 2019-20 of between 27 and 29 million barrels of oil. Beach Energy increased its 5-year production target lower end from between 30 and 36 million barrels of oil to between 34 and 40 million barrels of oil. It is also aiming for $2.7 billion in free cash flow over the next five years.

"To say that I am proud of what the Beach team has achieved would be a gross understatement," managing director Matt Kay told the market this morning. "We have delivered on every promise we made a last year's investor briefing and the focus is now about investing in the company's high value growth assets."

Beach Energy expects to spend between $750 million and $850 million on expansion this financial year, and deliver underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation of between $1.25 billion and $1.4 billion, which would be flat on 2018-19's EBITDA of $1.375 billion.

The S&P/ASX 200 has jumped up to 6405.5 points on opening, a rise of more than 50 points. This is thanks to 157 companies rising with just 33 lower. Heavyweights like Commonwealth Bank, CSL, Lendlease and Woodside Petroleum are all helping to add points.

Trading is heaviest is BlueScope Steel with investors unimpressed with this mornings results and future expansion ideas, knocking the share price down by nearly 11 per cent on opening to $10.88 from $12.20. This is the lowest intra-day price since 18 June.

Meanwhile SmartGroup is up 22.8 per cent to $11.13. It released half-year results last week and was this morning upgraded to 'add' from 'hold' by Morgans, while Citi cut its price target to $11.83.

oOh! Media's shares are dropping again today, currently down 4.8 per cent to $2.79. The stock was trading at $4.12 a week ago but has collapsed after it announced a weaker thank expected outlook.

Health fund nib has reported a full year net profit after tax of $149.8 million, representing growth of 13 per cent from the prior year, and says it is gaining members even as the overall health insurance market shrinks, Patrick Hatch reports. Australia's fourth largest health insurer said on Monday that it had a net policyholder growth of 2.1 per cent for the year to June 30.

Nib's managing director Mark Fitzgibbon said although that was not a big number, it would "contrast starkly" with an expected overall decline in hospital coverage across the industry. Australia's private health insurance industry is facing what has been described as a "death spiral", as people leave the system at the fastest rates in 15 years.

Group underlying revenue grew 8.3 per cent, to $2.4 billion, while the cost of health insurance claims grew 6.9 per cent to $1.8 billion. The company's profit result is in line with market consensus.

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