With February earnings in the books, now is a great time to reassess pockets of value on the ASX. To do this, I built a model to highlight earnings trends hidden amongst the noise. This sample has 30 ASX companies that I covered in my earnings series of winners and losers.

The logic is simple, categorise companies as winners, losers or indifferent based on the same day market reaction and compare the initial reaction to our analysts’ views. From the 30 ASX companies, three ASX listed opportunities really stood out from the pack. But first, let’s look at the top-down trends we saw in February.

More winners than losers

While the big story across markets right now is AI disruption, the Aussie earnings season was upbeat. Across the 30 companies, the sample had 15 winners and 10 losers (5 indifferent). Despite this being a smaller dataset, majority of the constituents I covered are amongst the largest on the ASX. Therefore, this sample skews more towards explaining the trends seen across the top end of the ASX200. However, as listed below there is a handful of mid cap companies such as Lendlease (ASX:LLC) and AMP (ASX:AMP).

Same Day Share Price Move Following Earnings

The average share price move on the day of reporting was an increase of 0.56% (median of 2.8%). This suggests on average, the largest ASX companies saw share price increases following their results. There were twice as many fair value upgrades from our analysts than downgrades. However, 70% of the time our analysts maintained fair value. This suggests that majority of the larger ASX companies met or exceeded our analysts’ forecasts. On the flip side, cuts to fair value were materially wider than upgrades.

The big four, materials and consumer staples clear standouts

The four big banks rose on average 6% on the day of the result. Only Westpac (ASX:WBC) and NAB (ASX:NAB) saw upgrades to fair value by our analyst, albeit fractional. Despite seemingly bullish market sentiment, all four banks remain materially overvalued.

The market rewarded basic materials and consumer defensive companies, rising on average 4.6% and 5.1% on the day. BHP (ASX:BHP), Fortescue (ASX:FMG) and James Hardie (ASX:JHX) all saw strong share price reactions in materials. While a2 Milk (ASX:A2M) and Woolies (ASX:WOW) led the way for defensives and both received fair value upgrades from our analysts.

With these secular trends in mind, I have handpicked three standouts from the 30 ASX companies.

Woodside (ASX.WDS)

  • Fair Value Estimate: $42 (26% discount at 16 March)
  • Rating: ★★★★
  • Moat: None

Woodside fell into the ‘indifferent’ category given the share price was relatively unchanged on the day of reporting. But the result itself was strong one. Woodside reported record 2025 production of 198.8 MMboe. MMboe simply stands for ‘millions of barrels of oil equivalent’ and is a metric resource companies use to combine output of oil and gas. As an investor, understanding a stock also involves understanding how the company reports. Let’s take a deeper look at the mechanisms behind the result.

Woodside produces gas (measured in cubic feet) and oil (measured in barrels) which naturally can’t be added together. ‘Barrels of oil equivalent’ standardises oil and gas into one unit of energy. In other words, what all that gas would equal if it were oil. This enables investors to track Woodside’s total energy output and how efficiently they can produce against peers. In 2025, Woodside saw a 4% reduction in the cost per barrel of oil equivalent (Boe) to $7.80. Our analyst Mark Taylor highlighted strong cost discipline in the result, which is explained in the lowering boe.

Looking forward, Mark expects a 6% decline in production in 2026 before bouncing back to 215 MMboe in 2027. The decline in 2026 production will be due to major maintenance planned for Pluto LNG project. The battle for Woodside investors is weighing up production growth vs. commodity prices. Mark sees both Brent crude oil and LNG prices falling through 2027 which offsets production growth. This is why earnings are expected to fall by 2% (compounded annually) through to 2030. Despite this, Woodside remains materially undervalued based on our fair value. The current dividend yield currently sits at 5.5% (fully franked).

Telstra (ASX.TLS)

  • Fair Value Estimate: $5.40 (5% discount at 16 March)
  • Rating: ★★★★
  • Moat: Narrow

Telstra was a clear winner following its February result. I had a chance to speak with our analyst Brian Han prior to earnings. My questions focused on understanding the underlying mechanisms that drive the business forward. But to recognise the drivers, it’s helpful for investors to understand the language in the reporting.

A key metric our analyst focuses on is mobile subscriber growth and average revenue per user (ARPU). The reason for this focus is because mobile generates 60% of earnings. Mobile is a key reason for Telstra’s moat, allowing them to increase prices while barriers of entry for competitors remain high. The earnings result saw steady mobile ARPU growth which helped lift underlying net profit by 12%.

Another key driver for Telstra is their focus on cutting costs and improving profitability. Brian calls this “Shrinking to Greatness”. As Telstra is a mature business, investors look for growing dividends and improving return on invested capital (ROIC). Both metrics have grown over the past year suggesting stronger cost control from Telstra across its fixed segments.

Telstra shares have bounced between three and four stars over the past few years. The current four star rating suggests the shares are in the undervalued territory. The current yield is 3.8% (historically fully franked).

WiseTech Global (ASX.WTC)

  • Fair Value Estimate: $138 (68% premium at 16 March)
  • Rating: ★★★★★
  • Moat: Wide

WiseTech easily fell into our winner’s category with shares up 11% on the day of earnings. The result beat the markets expectations and investors may see an opportunity in WiseTech at the current price. The second point can be backed up by my recent article on the most traded shares by Morningstar subscribers in February. WiseTech was the most purchased share by a solid margin. Still, the stock is down 60% from its peaks. So what could drive the share price back to fair value?

The backdrop is what is happening right now in software and how AI impacts the moats of software providers. In the past week, our analyst Roy Van Keulen has downgraded the moats of four ASX tech companies. TechOne (ASX:TNE), REA Group (ASX:REA) and Fineos (ASX:FCL) saw their moat reduce from wide to narrow. Hansen (ASX:HSN) saw its moat reduce from narrow to none. This is significant as it suggests a structural shift. The developments of AI threaten the competitive nature of software models by collapsing the switching costs for customers. So how do these developments tie to WiseTech?

WiseTech remains one of the few Saas providers with a wide moat. CargoWise is both incredibly comprehensive and uniquely positioned. Roy believes replicating CargoWise at scale would not be financially viable for any competitor. This is in stark contrast to the moat downgrades mentioned earlier. The key differentiator is that AI is a tailwind for WiseTech through cost reduction and dominance over competitors. At the current price, Roy believes that WiseTech is materially undervalued.

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