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Excuse today’s title; blame Shawn as we contemplated Michelle Bullock’s first move with interest rates since becoming the Governor of the RBA in September. The new head of the RBA has remained cautious towards both inflation and interest rates through 2023/4, and we see no reason for this to change. The RBA got it totally wrong on Philip Lowe’s watch, believing inflation was only temporary after COVID, a view which resulted in the dramatic rate hikes witnessed through 2022 and 2023. Bullock should and is adopting a cautionary stance until, hopefully, she is confident that inflation will return to its 2-3% target band.
The ASX200 experienced a news-packed, volatile week, closing down 107 points on Friday. It might surprise some subscribers to know that the ASX200 ended the week slightly higher; it certainly didn’t feel like it on Friday. Wednesday’s strong CPI print cast a long cloud over the rate-sensitive stocks/sectors. Australian credit markets are now factoring in the very real risks of a rate hike in 2024 after looking for two cuts only two months ago.
The local market dropped ~100 points on the open, failing to see any reprieve following two weaker sessions out in the US since our close on Wednesday. After dropping back below 7600 the index traded in a reasonably tight 30-point range for the rest of the session, failing to join in on the rally across the region and what’s showing on the US Futures ahead of their Friday session. BHP managed to take 31pts off the market alone today, weakness coming after they lobbed an all scrip bid for Anglo American (AAL LN). Despite the soggy end to the week, the ASX200 finished marginally higher, +8pts / +0.11%.
The ASX consumer discretionary (retail) stocks have demonstrated their need for a strong bond market. In the short term, we remain concerned they’ve disconnected slightly from the influential credit markets. Futures markets are starting to price in the risk of rate hikes in 2024, with some well-respected economists becoming increasingly hawkish. Judo Bank’s Warren Hogan is calling for three hikes to 5.1%; previously, he was looking for cuts in 2025, but the recent hot inflation data has seen him reverse this outlook. We feel the call for rates to hit 5.1% in 2024 is too aggressive, but we cannot see Michele Bullock considering rate cuts until the inflation genie is firmly back in the bottle.
Equities followed the US market higher this morning, also adding a little premium thanks to a handful of positive quarterly reports that were announced after the North American markets closed. That all took a back seat as inflation data printed late morning, CPI coming in hotter than expected which sent the market into a spin, falling ~0.6% at the time before finding some relief. In the end, the index closed little changed, a good result given the circumstances though largely thanks to support from the Big 4 banks.
Bond markets have struggled over recent weeks as inflation appeared increasingly “sticky,” but it hardly registers on the chart compared to their weakness through 2021/2 and mid-2023. We believe the local credit markets have come back to realistic levels as the RBA awaits further economic data to deliver clarity on the underlying strength and direction of the local economy. Traders have gone from being far too optimistic on rate cuts into Christmas to becoming almost pessimistic; the US futures markets have gone from pricing in three cuts to 1.77 cuts, or one definitely, and probably two.
Investors continued the 180-degree about-face from last week’s sentiment, happy to take on risk for the second consecutive day to start this week seeing the ASX200 through a 200pt gain from Friday’s panic lows early in today’s session. Tech was the standout as US 2yr yields retreated (marginally) from the spike above 5% last week while Healthcare and Financials also joined in the rebound. Energy and Gold were the main areas finding it tough again today, for the same geopolitical reasons as Monday’s session.
On Monday, Citi joined Macquarie with a “sell call” on the major banks, which saw the sector reverse early gains to close near their intra-day lows, ANZ even slipped into negative territory. There were two major reasons behind their bearish stance:
• Citi believes the valuations of the banks are stretched considering the potential political “attacks on their profits”, i.e. when the RBA starts cutting, they will be forced to follow suit at the expense of profitability.
• Macquarie said to “sell” the banks in mid-March as the sector posted new highs, again a call on valuation grounds; good timing so far!
The cornerstone of Citi’s argument is valuation, which could be applied to the whole market when the ASX200 is challenging new all-time highs. Overall, it is an understandable view, but we question if it’s a good enough reason to exit the sector, forgoing enticing dividends and potentially incurring capital gains issues after the “Big Four” have run so hard.
Equity markets seemed to forget last week’s struggles, starting the week on the front foot. The best was seen early, at one stage the ASX200 was up more than 110 points before giving back some of the gains. The small cap index held on though and closed on the day’s high today. Improving headlines out of the Middle East was the main driver of the risk on attitude, though this worked against Gold and Energy today. The banks also found another naysayer as Citi moved negative on all of the Big 4, though ANZ was the only one to close lower.
Last week’s Bank of Americas Fund Managers Survey showed the market is the most bullish in over two years on the back of the biggest jump in global growth optimism since May 2022 – allocations to stocks and commodities hit a 27-month high, at the expense of bonds, with cash levels falling to 4.2% from 4.4% in the previous month – just shy of the sub-4% level that traditionally signals a contrarian sell indicator for equities according to the BofA Global FMS Cash Rule. Conversely, an increasing number of fund managers now believe gold is the most overpriced since COVID. The most crowded trade recognized by fund managers continues to be the “Long Magnificent 7.” Overall, last week was not the best time for Fund managers!
