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BHP US price / “Cautiously Bullish”

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BHP US price / “Cautiously Bullish”

Hi MM, I have two unrelated questions: 1) You state in today's morning report that "BHP will likely outperform, having only slipped 0.5% in the US." I check BHP's closing US price each day before the Australian market open. Two sources I have looked at show a 1.16% fall in the US last night (with the after-hours close very similar, a -1.12% fall). There are also other occasions on which I have seen a different close to what MM has stated. So, I am a bit confused. It seems there may be multiple sources for the BHP US listing. Is that correct and, if so, which is the correct source? 2) MM often refers to being "cautiously bullish" on a stock. Can we please have some clarification on what MM means by that? To me, "cautiously bullish" seems to suggest a rating closer to "Hold" than "Buy" or "Accumulate"- that is, MM is bullish on balance, so will continue to hold the stock in question, but with a note of caution due to various concerns. If that is the case, why have the confidence to accumulate or buy? And sometimes MM does seem to use the phrase in that "close to Hold" context. However, other times, MM seems to use cautiously bullish even where it would Buy or add/accumulate. A recent example is your 20.07.24 commentary on ABB where you said it is oversold and "If we had a smaller weighting (currently 6%), we would have increased our position"...but then finished by saying that you are "cautiously bullish", which confused me a bit as you were happy to accumulate at that price if you didn't already have a full weighting. Maybe I am alone in my confusion, but I'd like to understand if I am sometimes reading too much caution/concern into the phrase "cautiously bullish" as it tends to introduce a note of caution in my own thinking/decision-making towards the stock in question (ABB was just an example). Thanks, Darren

Answer

Hi Darren,

1 – We look at the BHP closing price in the US in  $A terms compared to the close in the previous session on the ASX; source Bloomberg. It gives a far better indication of relative open in the morning compared to US moves on a 24 hour basis which don’t take into account FX moves and the previous days intra-day move in Australia.

2 – “Cautiously bullish” is a turn of phrase that in general spans in between Neutral and Bullish. It can be driven by a couple of reasons from our view towards a stock/index from a risk/reward perspective to our current positive outlook on the stock &/or sector. In this case we acknowledge that in the short-term further downside wouldn’t surprise. Sorry for the confusion, we will endeavour to be more specific moving forward.

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BHP US ADR Market ($US)
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