Archives: Reports
A relatively quiet session played out on the ASX today after flat U.S markets overnight and mild Futures this morning with limited news on the corporate front providing limited direction for the local bourse
The ASX 200 retreated on Thursday following a bond-induced weak session on Wall Street; the Dow ultimately closed down over 800 points. However, while the local bond market remains buoyant, following the dovish RBA commentary earlier in the week, with three cuts expected before Christmas, it wasn’t enough to support a market with over 60% of the main board closing lower.
A weaker session for the ASX, though a drop of 0.45% relative to the 1.6% decline on Wall Street shows good relative performance, which has been an ongoing theme in recent months. Gold stocks did well again while there was some sporadic corporate news flow that impacted individual names, but not a lot of top tier news flow today.
The ASX 200 extended May’s advance to +3.2%, taking the index within striking distance of its February all-time high. However, although the market finished up 0.5%, gains were far from broad-based, with over 45% of the ASX200 closing lower.
The ASX hit a new 3-month high today on residual optimism from yesterdays more dovish RBA rhetoric. The majority of stocks rallied, banks pushed up again and we saw a number of corporates provide solid updates, though not all were rosy. The backdrop for Australian equities has certainly improved in the last month, and it just seems a matter of time before we’re writing about new all-time highs at the index level.
We are making changes across two portfolios.
The ASX200 advanced +0.6% on Tuesday following the 0.25% rate cut by the RBA and a far more dovish outlook from Michele Bullock. Bond yields plunged on commentary about inflation, now within the RBA target band both in terms of the headline rate and the trimmed mean, with RBA forecasts expecting it to stay that way.
An interesting session for Aussie stocks, with initial strength being sold into, which has been a trend of late, only for the RBA to deliver a more ‘dovish’ cut than expected at 2.30pm which prompted a good bounce across most sectors into the close.
We are making several changes to the Growth Portfolio this morning.
Monday saw the ASX200 fail to notch its 9th consecutive gain following Moody’s US credit rating downgrade. The index finished down -0.6%, with over 65% of the main board retreating in line with US S&P 500 futures ahead of the night’s fascinating session.
