The ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) news has been dominated by China this week. At the time of writing the ASX 200 is down around 1%.
China News
There has been several Chinese related things for the ASX this week. We learned today that China has abandoned its GDP target because of the global economic climate. China is putting a lot of pressure on Australia because of the support for an independent COVID-19 inquiry. Barley is already being targeted and iron ore, coal and beef are also supposedly being looked at by China.
It’s why the BHP (ASX: BHP) share price was down 0.6% today, the Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) share price fell 2% and the Fortescue (ASX: FMG) share price dropped 0.15%.
Afterpay’s (ASX: APT) growth
The Afterpay share price managed to hit a new record by rising by $44 this week after announcing that it had reached 5 million active US customers.
More than one million new US customers have started using Afterpay during the COVID-19 period of the last 10 weeks.
In April 2020 Afterpay US had more than 15 million app and site visits and Afterpay’s US shop directory contributed almost 10 million lead referrals to its retail partners.
Aristocrat Leisure (ASX: ALL) reports
Gambling business announce its result this week. Aristocrat Leisure reported that operating revenue rose by 7% to $2.25 billion in the six months to March 2020.
Normalised EBITDA (which excludes significant items) fell by 7.7% to $707.6 million and the EBITDA margin dropped from 36.4% a year ago to 31.4%.
Normalised net profit after tax (NPAT) dropped 14.2% to $305.9 million and reported profit after tax rose 277.2% to $1.3 billion (including recognition of a $1 billion tax asset) compared to last year’s net profit of $346 million.
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Disclosure: Jaz does not own shares of any of the shares mentioned at the time of writing.
