Top 10 at 11: ASX rises 0.49pc as sentiment flips once again
With the market opening at 10am sharp eastern time, the data is taken at 10.15am in the east, once trading kicks off in earnest.
In brief, this is what the market has been up to this morning.
ASX flips the script once again
It can be a challenge to get a handle on the market's mood these days. On Tuesday, the ASX200 hit a new record closing high, adding more than 0.7% in a single day. Within 24 hours, we'd reversed the vast majority of that progress, down almost 0.8%.
This morning, things are looking up again.
The ASX 200 has risen 0.49% in the first half hour of trade, gaining broadly across sectors.
Financials is leading, adding 0.79% with some strong support from the ASX 200 Banks index (+0.77%), while energy lags 0.05% as the only sector in the red.
Both the Australian dollar and gold gained ground against the US dollar overnight during a very volatile US session that saw the S&P500 plunge 1% before recovering about as much to finish up 0.3%.
That's set the stage for some stirrings of momentum in the gold and resources indices, which have been struggling in recent days.
Let's check out which small caps are making the most of the market recovery.
WINNERS
Code Name Last % Change Volume Market Cap
BP8 Bph Global Ltd 0.003 50% 6618113 $2,101,969
HLX Helix Resources 0.0015 50% 370907 $3,364,194
RPG Raptis Group Limited 0.19 46% 77944 $45,589,031
CCO The Calmer Co Int 0.004 33% 174068 $9,034,060
TOU Tlou Energy Ltd 0.033 27% 3000 $33,763,192
RGL Riversgold 0.005 25% 50000 $6,734,850
VEN Vintage Energy 0.005 25% 2950040 $8,347,655
ADG Adelong Gold Limited 0.006 20% 2395305 $11,243,383
IND Industrialminerals 0.155 19% 25135 $10,441,925
ENV Enova Mining Limited 0.007 17% 1085546 $8,745,600
In the news...
BPH Global (ASX:BP8) has bumped up its seaweed sale revenue for the June sales period, lifting total revenue by 17.7% to a little over $177,000.
The sales were made to wholesale buyers in Indonesia, with new international contracts already in the pipeline for the July reporting period.
Vintage Energy (ASX:VEN) has offloaded its interest in the PEP 171 to Beach Energy (ASX:BPT) in return for $1.25m.
At the same time, VEN is launching a suite of production improvement measures at the Odin and Vali gas field. If successful, management estimates an uplift in gas production of between 2.1MMscf/d and 5.6MMscf/d, potentially paying back the cost of the program within three months.
Adelong Gold (ASX:ADG) has officially transitioned into gold producer status after achieving first gold pour at the Challenger gold mine in NSW.
ADG is celebrating the success of its partnership with project operator Great Divide Mining (ASX:GDM) in reaching this milestone, as the two companies work to realise the value of Challenger's 188,000oz gold bounty.
LAGGARDS
Code Name Last % Change Volume Market Cap
ERL Empire Resources 0.004 -33% 500000 $8,903,479
EEL Enrg Elements Ltd 0.0015 -25% 100001 $6,507,557
SHP South Harz Potash 0.003 -25% 1195668 $5,132,248
SRN Surefire Rescs NL 0.0015 -25% 1035593 $6,457,219
ROG Red Sky Energy. 0.004 -20% 439799 $27,111,136
HIO Hawsons Iron Ltd 0.0165 -18% 3428918 $20,330,027
SWP Swoop Holdings Ltd 0.11 -15% 20156 $27,882,220
ADR Adherium Ltd 0.006 -14% 733942 $9,708,707
ANR Anatara Ls Ltd 0.006 -14% 6575 $1,493,686
EMU EMU NL 0.024 -14% 20459 $5,914,957
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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
How easy is it to trick the Australian Taxation Office?
Sam Hawley: How easy is it to trick the Australian Tax Office? Well, for fraudsters it's not hard at all and plenty have done it costing taxpayers billions of dollars that have never been recovered. Today, Angus Grigg on his Four Corners investigation into the biggest GST scam in history and how the ATO dropped the ball. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Sam Hawley: Angus, you've been hard at work looking into what's going on at the Australian Tax Office. And you've really been having a deep look into this huge GST scam. Now, this unfolded in no other than Mildura in north-west Victoria. So, take me there and tell me about local resident Sarah. Angus Grigg: Yeah. Mildura is a really beautiful town, an irrigation town on the Murray in North West Victoria. And this GST scam really took off in Mildura. And it really was circulating within a sort of population that you might say is low socioeconomic groups, people on welfare, people with addiction issues. And we went to interview one person called Sarah. She was going through quite a bit of financial hardship at the time. I think she'd separated from her partner who was facing pretty serious charges at the time as well. And she was short of money because she needed to have some dental work done. So one of her friends showed her how to use a business that had been registered and an ABN linked to GST to claim GST refunds fraudulently. 'Sarah': The people that I was associating with at that time, they had done it and told me how easy it was to get a large amount of money quickly. And I just thought at the time it was a good idea because I was in a bit of financial trouble. Angus Grigg: She pretended, if you like, to be a hairdresser, despite the fact that she had no hairdressing qualifications. She'd never worked in a hairdresser, hadn't hired premises, had no equipment. And so she logged into her myGov account and first of all, claimed $15,000 and then did it a second time and got another $15,000. 'Sarah': I don't even really still understand how it went through. I was a single parent and then all of a sudden I'm a hairdresser that's getting this return put into my account with no other payments from clients or anything like that to balance it was needed. Like no proof. Angus Grigg: Now, bear in mind, the money went into the same account as her welfare payments and the money went within about 10 days without any verification, without any checks, without anyone from the tax office ringing and saying, what did you spend this money on? Do you have hairdressing qualifications? Have you hired premises? You know, she just absolutely couldn't believe how easy it was. 'Sarah': Yeah, I just couldn't believe it that it was just sitting there on my everyday access debit bank card. Angus Grigg: Now, the other thing to bear in mind, to receive a GST refund of $30,000, she would have needed to have capital expenditure or bought stock and other items for her hairdressing business of about $300,000. Now, surely a single mother living on welfare, getting family tax benefits, that should have been a red flag for the tax office. Sam Hawley: Wow. Okay. So Sarah, which is not her real name, just by the way, you've changed that for this story to keep her anonymous. She just tells the ATO she's a hairdresser and then the tax office falls for it. That's extraordinary. Angus Grigg: It is. And the fact that you don't need a receipt, you don't need any proof of the line of work you're in is extraordinary. And that's because the tax office basically fired most of the humans in the loop and started relying on algorithms or computers, if you like, to make these payments. They wanted to ensure the timely payment of GST refunds to businesses. But in doing that, they really opened the door up to fraud. Sam Hawley: Right. Sure. So the tax office wants to streamline things. But in the meantime, people like Sarah are all of a sudden dabbling in fraud. And as we've mentioned, she's not the only one. There's a lot of other people doing a very similar thing. Tell me about Linden Phillips. What was he up to? Angus Grigg: Linden Phillips, once again from Mildura, for us, he was like patient zero. It looks like he was the really one of the very, very early people in this scam. So what happens is that Linden Phillips gets out of jail in August 2021. And he already has a company registered. And so he reactivates his GST registration through his ABN and his MyGov account. And then within a couple of weeks of getting out of jail, he does what I'd sort of call a test run. And he claims $13,000 in GST refunds from the tax office. Once again, no documents, no receipts, no verification required. He gets that money within a couple of weeks and clearly then thinks, OK, I'm going to go for the big one. And so what he does is he lodges 46 backdated GST claims for an amount of $821,000 in GST. And the real kicker here is that for most of the period those GST claims are lodged, he's actually in jail. Sam Hawley: Oh my gosh. Angus Grigg: I know. He just couldn't make it up. Sam Hawley: What does he do with all that money? Angus Grigg: Well, of course, he spends it, right? Within a couple of weeks, the money's completely gone. He buys himself a second-hand Porsche. Somewhat endearingly, he buys his mother a house. But the really damning thing here is that the tax office notice it. Finally, someone, there's a human in the loop and they pick up the fact that, hey, maybe something's a bit wrong here. And so they ring him up and he says, oh yeah, no, it's all legitimate. I'll get my accountant to call you. The accountant never calls. They send him some emails. They write him some letters. He ignores them all. And the really damning thing here is the tax office does nothing for four months. And in that four month period, this scam absolutely explodes. So what we did is we went back and we deconstructed, if you like, the tax office's narrative. And the narrative was that this fraud took off on social media. The tax office noticed it. They cracked down really hard, really quickly, and they brought it under control. Now we sort about testing that idea. Sam Hawley: So the ATO says it did this great job. It cracked down on this fraud. But what actually happened? Because you actually had a look at that and discovered, in fact, the ATO didn't do much at all. Angus Grigg: No, exactly. So Linden Phillips does finally get caught, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the ATO. It all comes down to the smarts of a local detective in Mildura named Vanessa Power. Now, she is attending Phillips's house on a drugs and gun charge, and she searches his premises, his house, and she confiscates a phone. And using the sort of smarts that the ATO should be employing, she sees that on his phone there appears to be a pretty elaborate GST scam. And in fact, it looks as though that Linden Phillips had helped 60 other people perpetrate this scam. Linden Phillips is arrested. And then a few weeks later, the ATO finally launch what they call Operation Protego, which is to crack down on this GST scam. Sam Hawley: Wow. Okay. And at that point, of course, Sarah, who we spoke about earlier, she was also arrested back in December 2022. But the thing is, the money, it's sort of gone, right? 'Sarah': I can't pay it back. It's not even an option at the moment. Or it probably never will be. Sam Hawley: Is there any way the tax office can actually get these funds back? Angus Grigg: Well, this is the point, right? In the end, $2 billion was stolen from the tax system by 56,000 people. Now, the ATO tell us that of those 56,000 people who perpetrated this scam, just 120, I think it might be 122 now, have been convicted. Secondly, of the $2 billion stolen, the ATO tells us that only 160 million, or around 8% of that, has been recovered. Sam Hawley: And, Angus, that money, it really is just a drop in the ocean, right? Because you've also looked at all the other funds that the ATO hasn't managed to collect, and you've spoken to Karen Payne. Now, she's a former Inspector General of Taxation. She basically says if the ATO had collected what it was owed, then we would all be paying less tax. Angus Grigg: Yeah. Karen Payne, she really focused on what's called collectible debt. And that is this sort of giant number that the ATO doesn't like to talk about. And when she started looking at it, it was about $30 billion. Then it rose to about $50 billion. The figure is now $53 billion. And that is the amount of money or taxes that the ATO has levied, if you like, but not collected. Karen Payne, Inspector General of Taxation, 2019-24: The large percentage of the debts that were due were in fact owned by a very small number of taxpayers or they're related to a small number of taxpayer accounts. So you'd kind of think it's a small number of people you need to be chasing. Angus Grigg: And the point that Karen Payne was making is that if we collected all that tax, perhaps we would not have to pay as much tax, all of us, but also we'd have more money to spend on really basic things like schools, roads and hospitals. Karen Payne, Inspector General of Taxation, 2019-24: The fact that it keeps rising is troubling. So it's fundamental, I think, that we've got good administration of the tax system because the integrity of the tax system is fundamentally important to all of us. It pays for all of the services that we benefit from. Sam Hawley: Angus, despite everything that you have said, which is frankly really concerning, the ATO itself thinks it's doing a pretty good job, right? Because Chris Jordan, who was the tax commissioner up until 2024, he's been putting a rather positive spin on the ATO's work. Angus Grigg: Yeah. This is the really extraordinary thing. Despite all these scandals, the ATO tells us they are doing a great job. Just before Chris Jordan stepped down as tax commissioner, he did a victory lap, if you like, at the National Press Club, and he pointed out all the great, terrific things that the ATO has done. Chris Jordan, Tax Commissioner, 2013-24: We've successfully charted a massive program of transformation. We've cut red tape and we've modernised our administration of the tax system as part of the digital revolution to make tax just happen.
News.com.au
5 hours ago
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Labor to introduce Bill to cap PBS-listed scripts at $25, PM dodges questions on super tax
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AU Financial Review
7 hours ago
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ASX seeks to calm investor anger with changes to listing rule waivers
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