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A pretty quiet day on the news flow front with the market drifting higher to recover some of yesterday’s freefall. The early session sugar hit came from the US lower house passing the debt ceiling relief bill but aside from that there was little to move markets for the first session of the new month. Tech continued its rally while Healthcare was the star performer of the sectors.
Whenever we see triple-digit losses by the ASX investors become nervous and they question if things will get significantly worse before they improve – understandable in today’s environment considering the negativity in the press. One of the macro-economic factors being cited as the reason why stocks are vulnerable at current levels is rising interest rates but at MM we would counter this with a quick look at the correlation between the ASX and the closely watched Australian 3-year bond yield.
Overseas markets underperformed overnight which weighed on the open here locally. Resources were particularly on the back foot with strength in the USD putting pressure on materials while coal also fell to 2-year lows to hold energy stocks back. The rest of the market followed suit, particularly following a higher-than-expected CPI print at 11.30 am, up 6.8% in April vs the 6.4% expected. A very weak close resigned the ASX200 to its worst day since March.
The markets love to roll out a saying, almost as much as an acronym, with “sell in May & go away” a definite favourite which is actually supported by solid statistics going back decades. However, this year while the press had a field day with stories on banking failures, looming recessions and a US debt crisis the underlying index has been quiet e.g. this month the ASX200 has traded in a noticeably tight 3.2% trading range, one of the smallest post-COVID. In other words, it may not feel like it to many subscribers but the markets are relatively quiet at the moment.
It was a pretty muted session from the index point of view today with very little to drive markets following the US observing Memorial Day today. Real Estate gave back much of yesterday’s outperformance, followed by weakness in coal stocks weighing on the Energy sector. Banks were also marginally lower today, partly offset by strength in Telcos.
In April we looked at the Australian Property Sector concluding that we felt that value was returning to the sector following its more than 30% correction since January 2022. We are all aware that whether it be residential, or commercial, that property has struggled for over a year as a result of surging interest rates i.e. not that long ago you could fix a 4-year home loan at 2%, today the same loan is well over 5%.
The local market was on the front foot early, jumping almost exactly +100pts/+1.4% on the open today following a tentative deal on the US debt ceiling. The ASX followed a positive move from the US on Friday night with US Futures adding to gains during trade this morning, however, the rally was sold into with the S&P500 Futures currently trading ~0.5% from the session highs. Tech in particular finished well of intraday highs after some profit-taking kicked in.
Markets are expected to open strongly this morning following the welcome news that a US debt default has been averted with yet another last-minute deal, these politicians have the timing of a Hollywood thriller! The announcement wasn’t serenaded with any celebratory fireworks as the tentative agreement to raise the debt ceiling over the next 2-years was clearly an uncomfortable compromise by both parties to get it before Congress for the final tick of approval.
Investors remain very concerned that a recession is approaching fast which hasn’t been helped by the ongoing political bickering around the US debt ceiling between Biden and McCarthy. We still believe the balance of probability is skewed heavily to a compromise which will send the US S&P500 to fresh 2023 highs but the ASX200 looks far less likely to challenge its equivalent levels as both the influential banks and resources weigh on the index, our index simply isn’t weighted as heavily towards the tech sector as the U
A quiet end to a busy week for markets with competing factors creating some big divergence across sectors. For the week, the ASX 200 fell by -1.68% while the Small Cap Index was off by -2.86% – smalls still can’t take a trick! These moves however underplay the variance across sectors with IT up +4.7% contrasted by the Materials sector which fell 3.45%.
