- What Matters Today in Markets: Listen here each morning or find all Market Matters Podcasts on Spotify.
- FY26 Reporting Calendar in PDF Format: Here and in Excel Format: Here
The ASX 200 delivered a stellar albeit surprising performance for the second consecutive Tuesday; this time it was an exceptional triple-digit gain that took the index to a fresh 5-month high, and within 1% of a new record. Interestingly, the SPI futures volume was average, implying gains were driven more by a lack of selling to meet the increased risk appetite than aggressive buying. The bears should be getting uncomfortable on several fronts, and we thought it worth highlighting the pertinent comment we made in yesterday afternoon. “The Match Out Report”:
- “Recent data showed retail investors recorded their largest week of stock selling since 2022, while assets in leveraged ETFs fell 28%.”
Encouragingly, gains were broad-based in yesterday’s session with over 80% of the main board closing higher. If the weak longs and leveraged traders have been washed out of the market, as the above point suggests, the path of least resistance for the ASX should remain on the upside, especially if MM is correct and the RBA doesn’t hike again before Christmas. We often trot out the phrase “the market cannot go up without the banks”, but as we saw yesterday they’re coming back into vogue after correcting ~20% from their February highs.
We printed out the market had regained its mojo a week ago, but yesterday’s performance even surprised us! At this stage, the local index looks poised to surge above 9200 in July, if not today, despite market jitters around reporting season and the US-Iran conflict.
Overseas indices were strong as oil declined on optimism that a deal will soon be struck to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In Europe, the German DAX closed +0.8% higher, closely followed by the French CAC +0.6%. However, the real fireworks happened in the US, where the tech-based NASDAQ surged +3.3%, while the Dow rallied over 900-points, again hitting new highs.
- The SPI futures are calling the ASX200 to open up +0.5% this morning following the strong session on Wall Street, helped by a $1.50 gain by BHP in US trade.
