SYDNEY, June 23, 2026, 04:08 AEST
- Wesfarmers finished Monday at A$86.15, gaining 0.45%. The S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.1%.
- Bunnings and Industrial and Safety’s half-year numbers, when combined simply, lift revenue by around 8.1% but raise earnings just 2.3%. That would pull down the segment margin by about 70 basis points.
- Wednesday’s inflation figures and a share price trading higher than a number of broker targets are up next.
Wesfarmers (ASX:WES) added 0.45% to A$86.15 on Monday, pushing its gain to 7.7% since the June 9 close before its strategy briefing.What’s ahead isn’t as clear. A July reporting shift will roll lower-margin industrial sales into Bunnings, which could obscure the division’s headline growth.
Wesfarmers hasn’t put out a new ASX announcement since the strategy update on June 10. Monday’s gain appears to be investors still responding to the strategy, rather than reacting to any fresh guidance.
Broader market finished barely changed, as tech and energy stocks dropped but banks and consumer names picked up some ground. Retailers face a key timing issue with Australia’s May CPI numbers out at 11:30 a.m. AEST Wednesday, which could change the outlook for household borrowing costs.
Wesfarmers CEO Rob Scott said after the briefing the group is “accelerating the pace of productivity and growth initiatives.” He said AI and digital tools are central, and called out the balance sheet as capacity for more investment. LinkedIn
Brokers took a cautious stance. Macquarie moved Wesfarmers down to Neutral from Buy and lifted its price target to A$85. UBS stayed at Neutral and held an A$84 target. JPMorgan kept its Underweight and lowered its target to A$71. The stock finished Monday about 1.4% above Macquarie’s number.
Bunnings will start reporting Blackwoods and Workwear Group in its financials from July 1. CFO Anthony Gianotti said the move should help reach more small and mid-size business customers, calling it a way to “unlock growth in the small and medium sized customer segments.” Bunnings boss Mike Schneider said customers get “more choice, better product availability and an enhanced customer experience.” Wesfarmers expects the change to bring more sales and cost cuts, but said it will keep reporting Bunnings’ main retail sales numbers without the new units. ASX Announcements
The accounting move is easy to miss. Bunnings posted A$10.713 billion in revenue and A$1.388 billion in pre-tax earnings for the first half. Industrial and Safety saw A$869 million in sales and A$32 million in earnings. Just combining the two, Bunnings revenue would go up 8.1% but earnings only rise 2.3%, and the profit margin drops about 0.70 percentage point, or 70 basis points. One basis point equals 0.01 percentage point.
Bunnings’ revenue growth might look faster just because more businesses are in the segment now—not because retail trading has picked up. At the same time, margin could drop even if retail performance holds steady. That’s a warning about the comparison base, not a forecast. The company plans to give a separate sales disclosure, which helps, but investors still need a clear breakdown of earnings and costs.
Another factor is at play in the recent tape. Wesfarmers makes up 3.63% of the S&P/ASX 200, ranking as the sixth-biggest stock in the benchmark. About 3.44 million shares changed hands on Friday, close to triple the 1.17 million that traded on Monday, ahead of the index’s quarterly rebalance. That kind of volume fits how passive funds shift — these index trackers did most of their repositioning before Friday’s finish. This doesn’t signal soft demand, but it does mean one lighter-volume positive session doesn’t tell the whole story.
Valuation and rates keep near-term pressure on the stock. The Reserve Bank left its cash rate at 4.35% last week, saying inflation is still too high. If CPI comes in above forecasts, that could hit consumer spending and what investors want to pay for Wesfarmers’ earnings. The next big check is August 27 results, when the market wants to see productivity doing the work, not reporting tweaks or index flows.
