Archives: Reports
A lacklustre way to start the week with the market chopping around in a tight 27pt trading range as strength in Energy & Property was offset by weakness amongst the Resources, particular the Lithium stocks that got the jitters after a new Chinese Lithium Futures product was met by a barrage of selling…
The world’s major central banks meet this week with signs of an improving inflation picture permeating through from recent economic data, and while the ECB and Fed are still largely expected to raise rates by +0.25% it’s the accompanying rhetoric that’s likely to dictate how equities react i.e. are more hikes likely this year or can consumers look forward to an extended pause. With neither institution meeting until September, a hike feels likely this week after both Christine Lagarde & Jerome Powell have stated that inflation remains too high.
The ASX200 ended the week basically unchanged after drifting lower on Friday under the weight of heavy selling in the Tech Sector following a weak session in the US on Thursday. Over the 5 days activity was again focused under the market’s hood with strong gains by the Financials offset primarily by losses in the Resources. We saw 2 areas of macro-economic news which dictated the relative performance, firstly strong economic data, including employment numbers locally, saw bond yields rise and secondly ongoing weak growth numbers out of China weighed on an already struggling commodities market:
Local shares tracked US markets lower today as we head into the weekend, though there clearly remains some bullish interest with plenty of support for equities throughout the afternoon. Higher bond yields continued to weigh on the Tech sector which was also dragged down by softness being seen in US reporting on Thursday night. Index heavyweight Financials gave back some of the recent outperformance with banks consolidating recent gains and despite the weakness today Financials was still the best performing sector this week.
Cracks may be forming in the US housing market with total housing starts and permits pulling back in June below expectations – they declined 125K to 1434K. Also, mortgage applications for a home purchase fell 1.3% in the week ending July 14, while continuing to run at extremely low levels, reflecting the lack of activity in the existing home sales market. However, the NAHB’s housing market index ticked up further in the July survey, moving up 1 point to 56.
A day of could’ve and should’ve with the ASX200 giving up all of the early gains to finish flat on the session. The index climbed as high as 7383, up +60pts before the first hour was up, hitting the highest level since April but the good times ended there and the index was marginally lower by ~1 pm. Part of the reason for the failed rally was employment which came in stronger than expected pushing the chance of an August rate hike up.
When we consider the unpopular Coal Sector we cannot ignore the cash it’s generating compared to current valuations e.g. WHC only has a market cap of $5.85bn yet it has $2.7bn net cash and still produced $435m free cash flow in the June quarter with lower coal prices, enabling it to maintain its buyback strategy and pickup other assets that come onto the market at good prices. In our opinion, the sector is simply too cheap given the long lead time associated with the energy transition.
A good day across the market with the banks keying off better than feared updates from Bank of America & Morgan Staley overnight to rally for a 2nd straight session, the “Big 4” accounting for over 50% of the day’s gains as the index pushed higher into the close, thanks in part to better inflation data from the UK that was released at 4pm our time.
The ASX200 slipped -0.2% yesterday on broad-based selling that saw over 65% of the main board close lower, a strong day by the Banking Sector staved off any major damage at the index level with the “Big Four” ending up an average of +1.3% – they called the overnight move in the US perfectly. After last week’s 300-point drive higher this week has started off quietly with stock moves being dominated by company news and broker up/downgrades with even the RBA minutes failing to catch investors’ attention.
A steady flow of corporate news across the ticker today to keep things interesting while the RBA minutes released at 11.30 am prompted a sharp sell-off before a grinding recovery ensued – the index closing only marginally lower.
