Archives: Reports
A sea of red for a Monday with the ASX pulling back ~2% following a more hawkish Federal Reserve on Friday night. While indications point to peak inflation having passed, the rhetoric from the Jerome Powell strongly implies that we’re not yet peak rates which is obviously a negative for equities, however when we stand back and look at bond yields which edged higher but not by a lot, the volatility index which settled around 25 (which is low), we’re not…
Jerome Powell delivered almost the exact speech most stock market investors/traders were dreading from Jackson Hole on Friday however if you’re relatively cashed up like MM its not all bad news, although it’s unlikely our portfolios will be unscathed this morning even while we hold our highest cash levels in months. This is actually an opportune time to make mention of how important we believe psychology is for successful investing, to MM it ranks equally alongside the other 2 largely more recognised building blocks on which successful market players focus their efforts/attention:
The ASX200 experienced a very choppy week as is common through reporting season with 8 stocks in the ASX 200finishing the week up by more than 10% while 7 companies disappointed investors by similarly registering double digit losses. It felt like a volatile week due to the significant swings on the stock level but the index itself only closed down just 10-points following Fridays solid session as we saw a very impressive period for the resources companies offset by weakness in the consumer staples & discretionary, communication and financial stocks – we remain in a market that feels comfortable to aggressively rotate between stocks & sectors but it has no interest increasing or decreasing its overall exposure to equities.
A strong end to what turned out to be a flat week for stocks, although a very busy one from a reporting standpoint. Energy the standout up 6% while the Staples sector fell by the same degree, around 10% of the ASX 200 moved by 10% or more showing the influence of results, the best of them coming from one of our holdings in Altium (ALU) while City Chic (CCX) took the gong on the other side, losing a quarter of its value.
MM are amending our Flagship Growth Portfolio
The ASX200 rallied strongly on Thursday helped by a bounce in US stocks, a couple of strong company reports and further corporate activity as Perpetual (PPT) and Pendal Group (PDL) look to have finally tied the knot – M&A was added to overnight as the next stage of the KKR v Ramsay Healthcare (RHC) saga was released, more on this later. Market sentiment was also helped by Japan looking to restart nuclear power as the idealistic alternatives fail to match the country’s energy demands – it’s been well over a decade since the 2011 Fukushima disaster hammered consumer confidence in nuclear power but time can heal many wounds.
A solid day for the ASX with Property and Energy stocks underpinning the move higher in what is the vortex of local company results.
Wednesday saw the ASX200 fight hard to recover some of the last few day’s losses with the index finally closing up +0.5%, just below the psychological 7000 level. It was a busy day on the earnings front for the ASX with sentiment buoyed by further strong company performances, over 80% of the stocks on the main board which reported earnings closed up on the day. While only 62% of the index managed to advance it was another strong performance from the miners which suppressed any intra-day jitters, the IT Sector also helped the cause as they followed the lead from an improved sector performance on Wall Street plus a +12.8% rally by Wisetech (WTC) helped sentiment.
The market recouped almost 50% of yesterday’s losses today thanks largely to companies reporting stronger earnings. Some big beats played out which helped to improve the overall tone of the market, the Energy sector once again leading the way although support also came from the IT and Material names.
Yesterday was a tough day at the office for stocks with the ASX200 falling -1.2% on broad-based selling which resulted in 80% of the main board closing lower at the indexes lowest close since July. The market opened on a bearish note following losses across US & European bourses but this time a mixed bag of corporate results wasn’t enough to stem the tide and stocks extended losses over the day to close on the session low, back under the psychological 7000 level. The markets painting a fascinating picture on 2 levels with bond yields still the controlling factor:
