ASX live updates: All the latest news from company reporting season on the Australian market

Macmahon has booked a 39 per cent profit boost after successfully bringing fellow listed contractor Decmil into the fold.

The Michael Finnegan-led business reported net profit after tax of $73.9 million for the 2025 financial year after bringing in $2.4 billion in revenue.

The group has also focused on bringing down net debt used to fund its acquisition of formerly struggling contractor Decmil last year.

Borrowings were $162.5m, down from $236.9m in the first half and to “pre-Decmil acquisition levels”.

With acquisitions costs seemingly dealt with, the merged group has rounded up its total dividend payment for the full year to 1.5 cents per share.

Some big underground and surface mining contract wins, including over $500 million of new work in Indonesia, a $900 million contract extension at Byerwen and at $262 million worth of contracts at gold mines in Australia.

Shares in the company were up 5.5 per cent to 38c.

Australians might find it harder to get a new job with a major employment platform warning of “tough macroeconomic conditions”.

Seek released its full-year financial results today, showing job listings in Australia have fallen.

According to the job listing platform, role volumes fell 11 per cent in Australia. At the same time, candidate visits continued to rise as well as applications per ad as more Australians apply for these roles.

Seek chief executive and managing director Ian Narev warned of tougher times ahead for job seekers.

“In the near term, while labour market conditions across APAC (Asia-Pacific) are showing signs of stabilisation, our planning assumption is for employment growth to remain flat to low through FY2026,” Mr Narev said.

“In Australia, we expect unemployment to grow slightly, though a further easing of interest rates should gradually lead to labour market improvements.”

Read the full story here.

The Australian share market has slipped from record highs after a lull in overseas trading overnight.

By noon AEST, the S&P/ASX200 was down 44 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 8913.7, while the all ordinaries fell 62.1 points, or 0.7 per cent, to 9171.4.

Global markets traded sideways overnight, with Wall Street investors in a summer lull as they search for a catalyst.

The upcoming Jackson Hole Symposium, where the US Federal Reserve brings together financial minds to discuss long-term policy concerns, could offer that source of volatility, Capital.com market analyst Kyle Rodda said.

“Going into the event, the markets remain cautious,” he said.

It was mixed early trading session with five of six local sectors trading in the red by lunchtime, led by healthcare and energy while info tech led in the other direction.

Readthe full morning wrap here.

Australia’s consumer confidence surged in August after the Reserve Bank cut interest rates for the third time this year and signaled further easing is likely.

Sentiment advanced by 5.7 per cent to 98.5 points, a 3.5 year high, a Westpac survey out today showed. While pessimists persist in outweighing optimists, with a dividing line of 100, the gap is narrowing.

It has been 42 months since Australian consumers last registered a sentiment reading above 100 - the second-longest period of continuous pessimism since the survey began in 1974, behind only the early 1990s recession, said Matthew Hassan, Westpac’s head of Australian macro forecasting.

The data suggest “this long run of consumer pessimism may finally be coming to an end,” Mr Hassan said, adding that all components of the index posted gains. “Consumers appear much less anxious about their finances.”

The RBA has lowered borrowing costs by 75 basis points since the start of the year for a cash rate of 3.6 per cent. Governor Michele Bullock last week signalled a “couple more” cuts will be required to achieve the bank’s latest forecasts.

Economists see another rate reduction in November and a final one early next year, taking the terminal rate to 3.1 per cent.

The prospect of further easing “looks to have reinforced consumer expectations that mortgage interest rates are headed lower, giving a broad-based boost to sentiment,” Mr Hassan said. “Consumer attitudes towards major purchases are starting to turn positive.”

In Australia, where consumption accounts for about half of the economy, households’ attitudes toward purchases are closely monitored by policymakers.

Other key data points:

• The family finances vs a year ago sub-index jumped 6.2 per cent in August to 84.2, still pessimistic but only marginally below the long-run average of 88
• The family finances next 12 months sub-index climbed 5.4 per cent to 106.8
• The time to buy a major item sub-index rose 4.2 per cent in August to 101.7. Despite a 23 per cent gain over the last 12 months, the sub-index is well below its long-run average read of 124.
• The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Unemployment Expectations Index declined 2.4 per cent to 125.6 - a lower reading means fewer households expect unemployment to increase over the year ahead. The result is broadly consistent with a stable labour market
• The time to buy a dwelling index soared 10.5 per cent to 97.8, a four-year high and up 37 per cent on a year ago.

One of Australia’s major internet providers has been hacked.

iiNet revealed on Tuesday that it had been compromised, with an unknown third party accessing its order management system on Saturday.

The company said that most of the data breached was of a non-identifying nature and used to authenticate and activate orders for iiNet services such as NBN.

However, it admitted that a list of email addresses and phone numbers had been extracted from its system.

The list contained about 280,000 active iiNet email addresses and about 20,000 active iiNet landline phone numbers, plus inactive email addresses and numbers.

In addition, about 10,000 iiNet user names, street addresses and phone numbers and about 1700 modem set-up passwords look to have been accessed.

It said no credit card, banking details or customer ID documents (passport or driver’s licence) were hacked because such information was not held in the system.

Read the full story here.

ARB, Australia’s largest manufacturer and distributor of 4WD accessories. has lifted sales revenue 5.3 per cent to $729 million.

But profit tumbled 5 per cent to $97.5m.

However, investors will be delighted after it declared a fully franked final dividend of 35c and special dividend of 50c, taking its full-year payout to $1.19 a share - up from last year’s 69c.

ARB said sales to the Australian aftermarket were impacted by lower new vehicle sales, a key driver of the company’s sales to this category, “and inflationary pressures constraining consumer discretionary spending”.

“However, ARB’s steady Australian aftermarket sales was a solid result given that new vehicle sales of key models including the Toyota Hilux 4x4, Ford Ranger and the Isuzu D-Max were all down 17 per cent for the financial year,” it said.

“While new entrants to the Australian carpark in BYD Shark and Kia Tasman will represent an opportunity for ARB, the market is yet to see accessory demand for these two models relative to other popular pick-up models.”

Listed contractor Monadelphous has shored up an $83.7 million profit for the 2025 financial year on the back of strong construction activity and a busy energy sector.

The net result is a 34.6 per cent increase on the prior year, and spurred by a 12 per cent increase in revenue clocking in at $2.27 billion.

Monadelphous managing director Zoran Bebic said there was “robust longer-term demand” up for grabs in resources and energy markets.

He said there was “significant prospects in both construction and maintenance” and that demand for energy transition metals and Australia’s Net Zero emissions objective would also drive the next pipeline of opportunities.

Shareholders will be dished out a 39 cents per share fully franked, taking the full year dividend to 72 cents, up 24 per centon last year.

WA shipbuilder Austal has landed a new contract building a 36-metre catamaran for Australian tourism group Cruise Whitsundays.

The new work has been valued between $14m and $16m, and will be handled by Austal’s Vietnam offshoot.

Delivery of the new vessel, which will have capacity for 390 passengers and 10 crew, is expected by December 2026.

catamaran will have a capacity for 390 passengers and 10 crew - and operate scheduled resort connections

Austal chief executive Paddy Gregg said the new contract had been secured following a competitive tender process.

“This new commercial contract highlights the capability of Austal’s commercial shipyards and effective collaboration with both customers and industry partners,” he said on Tuesday.

“We’re delighted Cruise Whitsundays has selected Austal to deliver this important new vessel for their fleet.”

The vessel will service resort connections from Cruise Whitsundays’ terminal in Airlie Beach, to both Daydream and Hamilton Islands, in the Whitsundays, off the Central Queensland coast.

Woodside Energy’s half-year underlying profit has tumbled 24 per cent to $US1.25 billion ($US1.92b) even as it trimmed unit costs and delivered 548 million barrels of oil equivalent in the six months to the end of June.

Production was up 11 per cent compared to the first half the previous financial year, driving revenue 10 per cent higher to $US6.6b.

Its new Sangomar field in Senegal generate revenue of almost $US1b.

“Strong underlying performance of our assets, our robust financial performance, and a focus on disciplined capital management have enabled us to maintain our interim dividend payout ratio at the top end of the payout range,” said CEO Meg O’Neill.

The board will pay out a dividend of US53c a share.

Record iron ore and copper output has boosted BHP’s profit to $US9 billion ($13.9b), yet shareholder dividends have shrunk to their lowest amount in eight years.

BHP’s headline profit figure was healthier but cash flow dried up and net debt rose on the back of weaker commodity prices, as well as BHP spending big on new copper assets and a huge potash project in Canada.

The Big Australian recorded a 14 per cent profit rise for the 2025 financial year after making $US5.7b of write-downs during the 2024 financial year related to the suspension of WA Nickel and the ongoing legal fallout from the 2015 Samarco Dam failure in Brazil.

Underlying earnings were down 10 per cent to US$26b as revenue fell 8 per cent to $US51.3b. Free cash flow fell 55 per cent to US$5.3b and net debt jumped from US9.1b to $US12.9b.