Austal Limited

But they're winning contracts, particularly over in the US and particularly in the defence sector.

They've got some stuff with Austal and some government departments as well.

Still loss making.

So 12 mil revenue last year, $4.5 million loss.

That was off the back of trading activity beating consensus in the first quarter.

And buy now, pay later business Zip was stronger today, up by about half a percent after appointing a new board member, Sarah Adam- Adams- Gedge, a well-respected by the market, being ex-deputy chairwoman of Austal.

Now, as for the worst performers on the market today, we did see Macquarie losing just ever so slightly, about one-tenth of a percent, after a class action lawsuit was filed against it, Gordon Legal alleging 2,800 investors who had exposure to the Shield Master Fund haven't been properly compensated.

Light & Wonder was one of the worst performers today.

They had investor presentation released after the close yesterday.

Austal was up 5.8%.

They're currently fielding two bids for their US unit.

Transurban lost a little bit of ground.

We've got four sectors higher with seven sectors lower, though those sectors lower are very modestly lower, aside from energy down 2.5%, materials off 2%, primarily driven by weakness in gold stocks, and utility names off 1%.

On the stock side, the best performers on the ASX today, DroneShield up 6.5%, 40X Medical, 40X the ticker there, up 5%, and Austal ASB up 4.4%.

On the weaker side, we've got West African Resources down 8.4%, Pantoro Gold P&R down 7.9%, and the Leverett Lithium ALV down 7.2%.

We did have West African Resources though, ex-dividend, So that's largely a function of that weakness there, but gold stocks across the board quite weak today, given the interest rate hike in the US, pushing the US dollar higher, Aussie dollar lower.

Finally, we've got Zipco, ZIP, up 0.7%.

They've appointed Sarah Adam-Jedge as independent non-executive director.

bringing board experience across Kodan, Grain Corp, Aussie Broadband, Cricket Australia and Bravura, was previously Deputy Chair of Austal ASB.

So adding a bit of experience there for the Zip board.

Spire futures down 63 points or 0.7%, indicating a weaker open on the ASX.

A few announcements from Austal, Dino Noble and Transurban Group.

And that's about that.

We'll be back for the members podcast at midday.

Yeah.

The action also pushed into Austal, the shipbuilder.

It's currently attracting competing billion-dollar proposals for its U.S. operations.

There's private equity groups circling billions of dollars worth of Rio Tinto's Pilbara infrastructure, according to media reports this week.