J.P. Morgan Australia FTM 22 Jun 26 The Searchlight; Woolworths and Coles; PLS Group and More

Research evidence excerpt

J.P. Morgan Australia FTM 22 Jun 26 The Searchlight; Woolworths and Coles; PLS Group and More

Asia Pacific Equity Research

Australia First to Market 20 June 2026

Top Stories

The Searchlight (Jason Steed)

Paradox Lost

A post-conflict paradox? The post-conflict market aftermath reveals an apparent paradox: one that unravels on closer

inspection. In our view, the Middle East conflict was unlikely to conform to a standard geopolitical upheaval template, where oil

and gold rally in tandem and defensives outperform. Rather, as framed by our economists, it looked set to be an energy supply

shock super-imposed on an AI capex super-cycle. The anatomy of the shock largely explains the seemingly counter-intuitive

market scorecard. Higher inflation has kept central banks on a restrictive tack, lifting real yields, firming the USD, and weighing

down on the very defensives and bond proxies that a war-premium strategy typically favours. Layered on top of this, an

extraordinary surge in the Tech/AI complex has drawn flows from almost every corner of the market.

Woolworths and Coles (Bryan Raymond)

Private-label price check: Jun-26 – Coles returns to the pack

Coles' price premium to Aldi has contracted sharply in June, narrowing by 120bps to +9.2% (vs. +10.4% in May), driven by the

reversal of price increases across the Cheese category, marking the first material narrowing of its price premium since the step-

up in April. This compares to a broadly stable Woolworths private label price premium to Aldi (+8.9% in June vs. +8.8% in May),

close to its historical average of +8.4%. This is based on our sample of ~120 like-for-like private label products on a unit price

basis. Both Woolworths and Coles' respective price premiums to Aldi are ~40 to ~50bps above their respective historical