The Fletcher Building Ltd (ASX: FBU) share price is in focus today after the company raised its full-year FY26 EBIT guidance by around 6.4% to $400–$403 million, with strong Q4 volume gains across key divisions.

What did Fletcher Building report?

• FY26 EBIT guidance increased to $400–$403 million, including ~$52 million from surplus property sales
• FY26 EBIT from continuing operations (excluding property sales) now expected at $348–$351 million, up ~3.6% from mid-June guidance
• Light Building Materials division saw improved volumes, supported by procurement benefits and cost savings
• Iplex businesses in both NZ and Australia reported robust demand as customers accelerated purchases
• Distribution division’s PlaceMakers Frame & Truss volumes rose 5.4% on Q3 and 12.8% year-on-year
• Residential units taken to profit in FY26 fell to 536, down from 666 in FY25

What else do investors need to know?

Fletcher Building’s positive quarterly volumes across core manufacturing and distribution segments were partly driven by customers bringing forward demand, especially ahead of expected price increases. These temporary market dynamics are set to normalise in the first quarter of FY27, which could moderate near-term growth.

The company also finalised more details on the Laminex Cheltenham property sale in Australia, locking in expected EBIT gains and clarifying cost treatment in line with accounting best practices. From FY27, Fletcher Building will adopt an IFRS 18 compliant Income Statement, dropping “Significant Items” as a separate expense category for cleaner financial reporting.

What’s next for Fletcher Building?

While existing construction projects continue to support demand in the near term, Fletcher Building cautions that persistent input cost uncertainty and macroeconomic pressures may mean delays or cancellations of new commercial projects. Management notes this could soften Group performance in the first half of FY27 if trends continue.

The company remains focused on operational improvements, productivity gains, and supply chain efficiencies across its divisions to help offset market challenges. Investors will watch closely to see whether ongoing momentum in civil and infrastructure demand can balance out slower residential and commercial activity.

Fletcher Building share price snapshot

Over the past 12 months, Fletcher Building shares have risen 1%, trailing the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO), which has risen 3% over the same period.

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Motley Fool contributor Laura Stewart has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips. This article was prepared with the assistance of Large Language Model (LLM) tools for the initial summary of the company announcement. Any content assisted by AI is subject to our robust human-in-the-loop quality control framework, involving thorough review, substantial editing, and fact-checking by our experienced writers and editors holding appropriate credentials. The Motley Fool Australia stands behind the work of our editorial team and takes ultimate responsibility for the content published by The Motley Fool Australia.

I’m a big believer in the idea that that small Australian shares can deliver better long-term returns than large businesses due to their longer growth runways and being less researched by the market.

The investment team at WAM Microcap Ltd (ASX: WMI) are always looking for opportunities that could allow the listed investment company (LIC) to outperform the ASX share market.

Wilson Asset Management has outlined two Australian businesses that could make excellent returns from here. Let’s dive in.

Stealth Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: SGI)

The first Australian share to tell you about is Stealth Group, which WAM described as a business-to-business wholesaler and distributor of hardware, industrial,safety and consumer products.

In mid-June, the company released a strategy and trading update which reaffirmed previous guidance of another record year, with FY26 preliminary unaudited net profit after tax (NPAT) of $5.8 million, exceeding expectations.

WAM also noted that the company reiterated its long-term targets for annual sales of $500 million and an operating profit (EBITDA) margin of between 8% to 12% in FY28. The investment team noted the Stealth Group share price increased significantly after this announcement.

The investment team concluded:

We see scope for further re-rating of the share price over the next 12 months as the market continues to recognise the strength of Stealth’s earnings and growth outlook.

SharonAI Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: SHAZ)

The other Australian share WAM wanted to highlight is SharonAI. It’s not listed on the ASX, though it reportedly plans to list on the ASX boards in the first half of FY27, according to WAM. For now, it’s an Australian business listed on the NASDAQ.

The investment team described SharonAI as an Australian sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure provider.

WAM noted that during June, the company announced a significant six-year strategic compute collaboration with Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) to enable 72MW of new data centre capacity in Australia.

The companies plan to deploy Nvidia’s DSX AI factory design and scale up to 40,000 Grace Blackwell GB300 graphics processing units (GPUs), which are specialised chips used to power AI workloads, to service demand from AI startups, enterprises and university researchers.

After that agreement, SharonAI’s total AI factory capacity increased to 132MW, with 102MW contracted to end customers.

WAM noted that the company expects to have more than 55,000 total Nvidia GPUs deployed by mid-2027.

WAM Microcap said it invested in SharonAI as a pre-initial public offering (IPO) investment in December 2025 at US$1 per convertible note. It listed on the NASDAQ in February 2026 at US$30 per share and the notes were converted into ordinary shares in June 2026.

Since listing, the SharonAI share price has increased by 182.2% as of 30 June 2026.

WAM concluded its thoughts on the Australian share with the following:               

We maintain a positive outlook towards SharonAI and believe news flow is likely to remain positive over the near-term.

The post 2 small Australian shares with big potential appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor Tristan Harrison has positions in Wam Microcap. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Nvidia. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

There are a number of great ASX shares with high dividend yields worth knowing about. Australian companies can be some of the best options for passive income due to their generous dividend payout ratios and the bonus of franking credits.

We’re going to look at two ASX dividend shares with exceptionally high dividend yields. They offer significantly more income than the current interest rate on cash in the bank.

Below are two of my favourite ideas for large dividend yields.

Future Generation Australia Ltd (ASX: FGX)

Future Generation Australia is a listed investment company (LIC) offering shareholders a large and growing dividend.

Instead of being managed by one fund manager, this LIC’s money is managed by 16 different fund managers who all work for free so that Future Generation Australia can donate 1% of its net assets each year to youth charities – a great initiative.

This portfolio is significantly less exposed to the largest 10 businesses on the ASX, making it much more diversified, in my opinion. It gives exposure to more than 430 underlying securities.

Future Generation’s portfolio has outperformed the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Accumulation Index (ASX: XAOA), returning an average of 0.9% per annum more than the index between inception in September 2014 and May 2026. I think it helps to look at smaller, faster-growing businesses.

The solid investment returns have allowed this ASX share to steadily increase its payout each year since 2015 – that’s a decade of dividend growth! The business recently announced a 5.5% increase of its interim dividend and gave guidance of an annual dividend per share of 7.6 cents per share for FY26.

In other words, it’s guiding it will pay a grossed-up dividend yield of around 8% for 2026, including franking credits.

WAM Microcap Ltd (ASX: WMI)

WAM Microcap is the other ASX share I want to highlight. It’s also a LIC, targeting the most exciting undervalued growth opportunities in the Australian microcap market.

As an example of the businesses in the portfolio, some of its current holdings include Artryra Ltd (ASX: AYA), Beacon Lighting Group Ltd (ASX: BLX), EchoIQ Ltd (ASX: EIQ), FINEOS Corporation Holdings PLC (ASX: FCL) and Kogan.com Ltd (ASX: KGN).

Its investment performance has been solid, with its portfolio delivering an average return per year of 14.4% since inception in June 2017, before fees, expenses and taxes.

Due to that high level of passive income, the business has regularly increased its annual dividend since FY18, with no dividend reductions during that period (along with a few special dividend payments).

WAM Microcap has provided guidance that it will pay an annual dividend per share of 10.7 cents in FY26. That translates into a grossed-up dividend yield of 10.5%, including franking credits, at the time of writing. It’s hard to find a business with a consistent dividend that has a larger yield than that.

These aren’t the only businesses offering appealing dividend income on the ASX.

The post 2 ASX shares with dividend yields above 7.5% appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor Tristan Harrison has positions in Future Generation Australia and Wam Microcap. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended FINEOS Corporation and Kogan.com. The Motley Fool Australia has positions in and has recommended FINEOS Corporation. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Kogan.com. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.