HomeReportsMacro Monday: European uncertainty & the Resource…
French President Macron is playing a huge game of chess, poker, or maybe even chicken after making the calculated gamble that the French people won’t hand over power to Marie Le Pen and the Far Right. Last Sunday’s European elections stunned the region as the Far Right Parties’ popularity surged. The National Rally Party secured around twice as many votes as Macron’s Renaissance Party. Hence, the President’s large throw of the dice, which has unsettled the French CAC-40 and other European equity indices.
Between copper, pharmaceutical and country-specific tariffs sprayed across the globe by U.S President Donald Trump overnight, there was plenty on the macro front for the local bourse to digest today.
The ASX200 fell 0.6% on Wednesday, its largest decline in two months, as the market spent its 26th day rotating in a relatively tight 200-point range. However, while the index has been very calm for almost six weeks on the stock level, it's been a very different story with the return of tariff uncertainty and the ever-changing perceptions around the future path for interest rates, spiking volatility across stocks – it’s just been a case of rotation between sectors instead of between stocks and cash.
A weaker session today as Copper tariff news created some volatility amongst the resources, gold stocks were weak, while rate sensitive areas like property felt the pinch from the RBA reticence to cut rates yesterday.
The ASX200 had plenty of reasons to fall on Monday, but again, come 4 p.m., the bears were left disappointed: Trump is throwing around tariffs again like confetti, the Dow dropped over 400 points, and the almost guaranteed RBA rate cut failed to materialise.
The ASX200 closed down 0.2% on Monday, largely shrugging off weakness across US futures markets as Trump’s tariff deadline moved ever closer. Over 40% of the main board managed to close higher, with most of the major movers on the day being news-led.
No trade in the US on Friday night (Independence Day), so a quiet session to kick things off locally ahead of some key data points this week. The RBA should cut rates tomorrow which would be their first back-to-back move in 6-years, while we await the tariff deadline in the U.S on Wednesday night.
Donald Trump’s second presidency has been volatile, and it's still less than six months since his inauguration. When Congress approved Trump’s budget mega bill on Thursday, it was the latest of the milestones for the president as he follows through on his unconventional election promises.
The ASX200 advanced another 1% last week, closing above the psychological 8600 level for the first time. The healthcare, real estate, and materials sectors all closed up around 3%, while the financial sector was the weakest over the five days, closing down 0.7%. For the market to extend the recent gains, it will need to shrug off high valuations and lack of earnings growth, although, as we saw last week, the resources stocks can do some of the heavy lifting after experiencing a tough 18 months.
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