ASX rises but Healius plunges

The news: The Australian sharemarket ended the week with a rally as the big banks gained, but Healius faced sharp losses after its trading update disappointed investors.

The benchmark ASX 200 gained 0.74% to end at 8,285.2 with 10 out of 11 sectors finishing in green.

Biggest news:

• Healius (-16.04%) — It said its pathology volume growth did not translate immediately to earnings and that a potential government funding cut could close laboratories. It was also hit with a first strike on its remuneration report at its AGM.
• Mineral Resources (-5.04%) — After queries from the ASX it revealed details of financial benefits provided to companies linked to the daughter of outgoing managing director Chris Ellison.
• ASX (0.67%) — Announced that it does not accept allegations by the corporate regulator that it breached the law with misleading statements linked to its CHESS replacement program.

Other news:

• Big banks — CBA (1.5%), NAB (1.34%), Westpac (1.91) and ANZ (2.59%) all rallied despite Morningstar flagging that value was scarce among banking majors.
• Nufarm (3.61%) — Extended its rally following better-than-expected full-year results but analysts had mixed feelings about the stock.
• Lendlease (2.71%) — Reaffirmed its full-year guidance and said it expects gearing to trend down "significantly" in the second half of the year.
• Xero (0.94%) — Jarden and Morningstar hiked their respective target price and fair value estimate on the company but the latter said its share price was ‘overvalued’.
• Coles (0.85%) and Woolworths (0.69%) — The supermarkets have announced they intend to defend class action proceedings relating to price manipulation allegations.
• BHP (0.15%) — Pointed to media reports that said the Brazilian Federal Court cleared BHP Brasil, Samarco, Vale, and VogBR of criminal offences relating to the failure of Samarco’s Fundao dam.
• Lovisa (-3.84%) — The retailer’s ex-CEO Shane Fallscheer opened competitor store Harli + Harpa on Thursday and Citi flagged growth risks and uncertainty around its unexpected CEO change.