The ASX200 rallied another +0.3% yesterday as it embraced advances across Asian indices as opposed to falls in the US on the previous night. Again we saw winners & losers almost perfectly match each other but some strong moves by China-facing names and in particular iron ore stocks, led the index higher e.g. RIO Tinto (RIO) +3.5%, South32 (S32) +3% and BHP Group (BHP) +2.1%. In line with our outlook towards Chinese stocks, we can see yesterday’s moves extend further into 2023 i.e. even after bouncing 20% from both this month and 2022’s low the bulk commodity remains 58% below last year’s high, in other words, its still more than halved.
- No change, we continue to look for the local market to rally in a “3 steps forward, 2 back” fashion.
The SPI Futures are pointing to a flat opening locally after US stocks entered a holding pattern ahead of Jerome Powell’s speech.