Diminishing dividends by the global miners and a pull-back in profits by the big banks are on the cards as reporting season gets underway next week.
Investors may have to look elsewhere for growth, and they may find it among the telcos.
Not so much outage-plagued market heavyweight Telstra, but TPG Telecom and Vocus Communications should have strong outlooks after respective mergers position them for increased market share from their bigger rival.
With the backdrop of a rising market amid weak inflation and international instability, investors will be sifting for value in what could be a challenging four weeks. Here's what to look for.
Banking
Heavy discounting in the home loan market is tipped to start eating into the profitability of banks when several big lenders update investors on their performance over the coming weeks.
Investors will also be on the lookout for any signs of higher charges for soured loans, especially to customers feeling the pain in the mining and dairy sectors.
When Commonwealth Bank reports its annual results on August 10, a focal point for many investors will be its profit margins, and whether they are being crunched by fierce competition.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank also delivers its full-year results next month, while National Australia Bank and ANZ Bank will provide quarterly updates.
Banks are all eyeing growth in the mortgage market, and analysts say this is triggering deep discounts of up to 1.4 percentage points off their standard variable home loan interest rates for new customers.
With competition for deposit funds also heating up, analysts predict a squeeze on net interest margins - the difference between fund costs and the price of loans, a key influence on profits.
Macquarie analyst Victor German says the margin pressure may start to become more evident in six months, but the market will want to know how banks may respond.
It is often predicted banks will try to offset this pressure by raising their home loan interest rates, or only passing on part of predicted cuts from the Reserve Bank. However, such a move can risk provoking customers to consider switching, and may also further increase the political heat on lenders.
Principal at fund manager Alphinity, Andrew Martin, also points to the likely pressure on bank margins as a key issue for investors.
"I think margins are going to come under pressure, unless they come out and say we are going to be re-pricing and get it back in other ways," he says.
Another question on investors' minds is whether banks will face further increases in their bad debts, which have been at historically low levels in recent years, boosting profits.
In May, several big banks revealed they were exposed to several high-profile corporate collapses, such as Dick Smith. Mr Martin said there was now a focus on underlying credit quality among small business and retail customers.
Media
The best stocks to watch this year will be online classifieds, outdoor advertising and radio, according to Macquarie research analyst Andrew Levy.
He expects SEEK and REA Group, which owns realestate.com.au, to report "mid-teen revenue growth" for the second half of the financial year. SEEK is expected to report post-tax profit of about $195 million. And REA expected to report earnings of $353 million, up from $286 million last financial year.
There will be a lot of interest in growth in outdoor advertising companies Ooh! Media (reporting half-year only) and APN News and Media [APN], which owns half of Adshel. This is one of the fastest growing sectors in media with revenues up 18 per cent in the first half.
Last calendar year Ooh! reported earnings of $57.7 million on $280 million of revenue and paid out dividends of 9.5 cents. It expects to see earnings between $68 million and $72 million this financial year. But things are not looking so good for television, with Macquarie downgrading recommendations for free to air television stations owned by Seven West Media and Nine Entertainment Company because of an expected decline in advertising revenue.
On Thursday FreeTV Australia confirmed collective television advertising revenue in 2015-16 was $113 million lower than the previous financial year. Channel Ten's share of the advertising pie has increased from 22 per cent to 25 per cent, at Channel Nine's expense.
Telcos
Following the recent outages on the Telstra network there will be a lot of interest on mobile customer growth figures in the full year results. Was the public outrage real, or did the free data days and apologies placate the telco's 16 million mobile customers?
At its half-year results Telstra provided guidance of 'mid to single' digit income growth with free cash flow of up to $5.1 billion. Last year the company reported pre-tax earnings of $10.8 billion.
Meanwhile David Teoh's TPG Telecom is a favourite among traders at the moment after hitting an all-time high of $12.62 this week. During the financial year TPG completed the purchase of iiNet and announced plans to buy $85 million worth of spectrum for mobile phone and broadband, paid over two financial years.
At its half-year results TPG said it expects to see underlying pre-tax earnings of up to $775 million, thanks to iiNet, up from $485 million in 2014-15.
Hot on the heels of TPG is Vocus Communications, which merged with the much larger M2 in February and bought a lot of backbone fibre with the $800 million purchase of NextGen Networks and undersea cables during the financial year. It is now the fourth largest telco in the country. In 2014-15 it reported a post-tax profit of $27.4 million. At the half-year results it reported pro-forma merged post-tax profit of $82.5 million, which indicates full year profits of Vocus/M2 could be around $150 million.
Resources
Like the broader market, the hunt for returns in the mining sector has seen investors rotate their portfolios in recent times. Shareholders in the big miners will experience a new world of dividend payments next month, as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto put their new policies into action.
Forecasting the two companies' dividends has been pretty easy in recent years, with the "progressive" payout policies ensuring the dividend was never lower than the previous year.
But both dumped the progressive policy in February amid some of the weakest financial results in a decade, and estimating the dividends will be tougher from now on.
BHP is likely to post a statutory loss for the year to June 30, given it has already flagged its results will be dogged by more than $US7 billion of exceptional items. Australian analysts are forecasting a net profit after tax of about $US1 billion. But estimates for the dividend are more varied.
BHP's new dividend policy states that shareholders will get a minimum 50 per cent payout of underlying attributable profit each half.
The formula would have delivered a dividend of $US0.04 at the February half year results, but the BHP board used its discretion to bump that up to $US0.16, still well below the $US0.62 dividend in February 2015.
Deutsche predicts total dividends for fiscal 2016 of US30 cents while Macquarie predicts US20 cents.Rio's new dividend policy is more open to the board's interpretation each year; the company will aim to return 40 to 60 per cent of underlying earnings in aggregate over the long-term.
In an effort to bridge the gap between the $US2.15 in dividends paid for calendar year 2015, and the much lower dividends that are likely to come in the near future, Rio will pay a total of $US1.10 during 2016. Next month's half year dividend will likely represent less than half that amount.
Retail
The collapse of Dick Smith and the Target accounting scandal are expected to sharpen the focus on full year earnings from Australia's listed retailers this year following revelations both chains used rebates to boost their profits.
Concerns over exactly how rebates are reported in financial accounts will ensure some probing questions this reporting season, according to Baillieu Holst analyst Mathan Somasundaram.
He said the focus on earnings would be sharper and analysts as well as shareholders would be seeking more detail on exactly how rebates were accounted for in a way not seen in previous years, amid fears other retailers are manipulating their earnings results in the same way.
JB Hi-Fi is one of the beneficiaries of Dick Smith's downfall but its current bid for rival chain The Good Guys will dominate commentary on electronics retailers, including Harvey Norman.
Broker Citigroup said the retail stocks with exposure to the housing sector were expected to remain strong, however, early discounting in the general apparel sector, triggered by the warm start to winter was likely to weigh on Myer and mid-market player, Specialty Fashion Group and its brands, which includes Millers and Katies.
The release of Woolworths' full year result will provide the comparable stores sales growth rate for its supermarket chain and finally provide a snapshot of how far it has to travel on its turnaround journey.
AAP Securities' Matthew Felsman said the $1 billion restructure work Woolworths unveiled earlier this week, including the closure of 27 stores as well and the axing of 500 jobs was expected to deliver improvements down the line.
"Analysts on the whole still think the turnaround has some way to go... coming into reporting season the vast majority are still negative on the stock," Mr Felsman said.
Supermarket sales suffered as a result of seasonal fresh food price delation and competitive pricing across the major banners, according to broker Citi, which exerted pressure on margins at both Coles and Woolworths in the second half of the financial year.
Market watchers suggest the Wesfarmers-owned Coles has battled to maintain its strong growth rates through the fourth quarter but analysts are also starting to ask how long Coles will be able to maintain its growth rate in the face of fierce competition, sharper pricing at Woolworths and Aldi's relentless march.
Reporting for duty
What to look out for this profit season (Company report dates)
Rio Tinto - August 3
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank - August 8
REA Group - August 9
ANZ Bank (quarterly) - August 9
Commonwealth Bank - August 10
Fairfax Media - August 10
OZ Minerals - August 10
Telstra - August 11
JB Hi-Fi - August 15
National Australia Bank - August 15 (quarterly)
BHP Billiton - August 16
AMP - August 18
Medibank - August 19
Woodside - August 19
Vocus Communications - August 23
Wesfarmers - August 24
Northern Star - August 25
Nine Entertainment Company - August 25
Woolworths - August 25
Harvey Norman - August 26
Myer Holdings - August 30
Regis Resources - September 14
Premier Investments - September 16
TPG Telecom - September 20
