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The ASX 200 rebounded strongly on Thursday, closing up +1%. The banks led the gains, with the “Big 4” up an average of nearly +2%, while the retail and tech names played strong supporting roles.
The ASX rebounded strongly today, recovering some of the ground lost in its sharpest one-day fall since April yesterday. A softish open relative to the finish, the index opened +40pts higher but rallied through the day, with some profit taking around midday before another surge in the second half of the session, closing within 5pts of its high.
The ASX200 hit a buyers’ air pocket on Wednesday, leading to its worst day in 5 months when a weak session on Wall Street combined with a strong local GDP print of +1.8% year on year, above the 1.6% expected by economists.
A poor session for local stocks as stronger-than-expected GDP numbers dimmed hopes of another near-term RBA rate cut. Gold extended its record-breaking run, but tech weakness and pressure on the big banks dragged the index lower.
The ASX200 slipped 0.3% on Tuesday, with over 65% of the main board closing lower, led by the consumer discretionary and staples sectors. With reporting season behind us, the local market feels tired and lacklustre after its +26% rally from its panic “Liberation Day” April low.
A second session where stocks drifted lower on very little news flow, with the US market closed overnight for Labor Day and economic + company data thin on the ground.
The ASX200 fell away after an ok first 30 minutes to end Monday, the first trading day of September, down 0.5%. The ASX started the new month on the wrong foot, dragged down by the big banks and major miners, while gold surged to a new all-time high following another post by Donald Trump – more on this later.
Weakness crept into the ASX today as we start the most challenging month of the year, where the ASX has fallen on average 2% for the past 10 years. Dividends play a role here, however we’ve seen declines 70% of the time, and with markets at/near all-time highs, it’s easy to see why some profit taking may creep into the market ahead of the seasonally strong December quarter. Defensives and Gold outperformed while Tech was the obvious pocket of weakness.
The ASX200 closed up +3.6% for August, shrugging off its seasonally weak tag, having closed lower 70% of the time over the last decade. Interestingly, September is usually worse. It has fallen 80% of the time over the last decade, resulting in an average loss of 2.35%.
The ASX200 slipped 0.1% lower on Friday, but it still finished the week up +0.1%. As we’ve said a few times lately, it’s feeling a touch tired above 9000. It was another week to remember from a reporting perspective, which dominated much of the movement on the sector level, although the materials sector continued to enjoy a strong recovery, topping the leader board for the week and month.
