ASX 200 weekly wrap: Afterpay, Coles, CBA, ANZ & more higher

Gains in popular ‘buy now, pay later’ business Afterpay Touch helped drive the technology sector higher last week.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was up 1.83% to 5,880 points at the close last week, and the broader All Ordinaries index gained 1.84% to 5,941 points.

Canstar General Manager of Wealth Josh Callaghan said the information technology sector led the rally, up 4.19%, followed by the larger consumer staples sector (+3.22%) and the financials (+2.6%).

He said Afterpay was up almost 20% after releasing some strong unaudited first-half results, and data business Appen also had a surge in price to finish up 12.9% higher.

Afterpay reported underlying sales in the first half of 2019 of more than $2.2 billion, which is more than double its sales from the year prior.

The ‘buy now, pay later’ company also told investors on Friday it had processed $260 million worth of underlying sales in the first half of 2019 in the United States.

The company has been operating in the US for just over six months, with big-name brands on board, including the likes of Kim Kardashian West and Forever21.

“Other than a very small pullback on the share market on Monday, there was little in the way of the bulls last week who pushed the ASX 200 up,” Mr Callaghan said.

“This was despite the Brexit deal being historically voted down in the UK, which throughout 2018 would have been enough to dampen our local economy.”

CMC Markets Chief Market Strategist Michael McCarthy said better-than-expected US company profit reports in recent weeks show that fears around Brexit, European growth and the US government shutdown may have been overblown.

Supermarket giant Coles, which recently demerged from Wesfarmers, grew its market value by more than $1.05 billion, with its share price rising 6.9% last week.

Three of Australia’s four major banks and Macquarie made some of the biggest market value gains last week.

The Commonwealth Bank topped the leader board with an increase of more than $2.7 billion in market value and a share price gain of 2.2%.

Sydney Airport, by comparison, saw the biggest drop to its market value on the Australian market last week, losing more than $4 million and shedding 3% from its share price.

Mr Callaghan said Sydney Airport lost ground after its December passenger numbers revealed traffic growth was down.

“The airport blamed the dip in passengers on the number of rainy days it experienced in December and the subsequent flight cancellations,” Mr Callaghan said.