Archives: Reports
The local market kicked off the week on the front foot, continuing the momentum seen since the turn of the New Year to push into a new 8-month high. It was a broad-based rally with all sectors in the green and 4 sectors up more than 1% led by a surging tech sector. Materials were one the laggards, mostly on the back of weakness in iron ore stocks as China flagged a potential response to the surging price of the commodity.
We will deliver The MM Annual Outlook Report in the coming weeks but today’s first report for 2023 is likely to provide some clues on our current thinking for the coming year with stock/sector volatility looking set to be firmly on the menu yet again i.e. another year for the Active Investor. In a number of key financial markets, we have strong views on where they are travelling over the next 2-5 years but the next 3-6 months could easily see 10-20% reversions as varying dominant cycle thematic come in and out of favour such is the nature of today’s rapidly evolving macroeconomic landscape hence in our opinion investors must manage risk and be often prepared to “buy weakness and…
We are selling our 4% holding in HUB24(HUB) given its traded up into our target region above $28. While we continue to like HUB, and will own it again at some point, raising cash into market strength has it’s appeal for now.
The ASX keyed off a weak session overnight following more robust economic data from the US – the concept of good economic news is bad for stocks given the focus on interest rates clearly at play, however, with little volumes and very few at their desks today (the MM Team an exception!) it was always going to be hard going.
The ASX200 finally strung together two consecutive positive days courtesy of strong performances from overseas bourses, in quick fashion the local index had bounced almost 150 points, recovering more than 40% of December’s losses in the process – it’s, unfortunately, going to be a different story this morning. Thursday’s gains were fairly broad-based with over 75% of the index rallying with only the Resources Sector surrendering a little ground. A number of the growth stocks caught our attention in the winner’s enclosure as bond yields continue to consolidate their strong advance through 2022:
The ASX continued to recover today following the mid-week dip although the ASX 200 is still down 1.81% for the month of December which doesn’t correlate well with the idea of a Christmas Rally. If the market stays down, it will be only the 8th time that has occurred in the past 29 years with the average gain in December for that period being +1.85% – a bit of work to do from here! A mixed bag from a sector perspective today with Utilities the standout while IT also played a solid supporting role. The only sector in the red was Materials.
The ASX200 has embraced the saying “what a difference a day makes” in consummate style over the last 48 hours i.e. down aggressively on Tuesday following the BoJ’s hawkish tweak on interest rate policy followed by a +1.3% recovery yesterday, the net difference being down just 18 points. The local market’s advance yesterday was broad-based with over 85% of the main board rising as the bulls again started talking up the prospects of a late Christmas rally – certainly, anything is possible as volumes start to decline. There were a few standout sector performances as the news from Japan was dismissed almost as fast as it arrived:
A volatile 24 hours across financial markets, this time yesterday the ASX had dropped 109pts and looked average at best while today’s +90pt bounce back has the bulls a little more at ease – the joys of tepid volumes before the big fella drops through the chimney…
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) shocked financial markets at 2 pm AEST when they adjusted their yield curve control program, in simple English they will allow Japan’s 10-year bond yields to rise to ~0.5% from the previous upper limit of 0.25% – at MM we all wish we could borrow money for 10-years at 0.5%, that would make a lovely present from Santa. However, at the same time, the central bank kept its short-term interest rates at minus -0.1%, significantly below the likes of Australia, Europe and the US.
Certainly, a risk-off day for stocks right across the region following the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) move to tweak their yield curve control program where-by they’ll allow the 10-year bond yield to rise to 0.5%, up from the previous upper limit of 0.25% – hardly a blip compared to what other bond markets have experienced but big in the context of how the BoJ have previously operated.
