Archives: Reports
The ASX200 danced a similar jig to last week by looking good on Thursday morning only to unravel through Friday as the inconceivable crossed the newswires – Russian forces had shelled Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Southern Ukraine setting it ablaze and leaving onlookers considering another Fukushima disaster. It’s very easy to comprehend the markets rising concerns when the New York Times ran a headline that an explosion would be the end of Europe – Vladimir Putin playing an extremely scary game that may still force the West to intervene.
Weakness into the weekend ruined what was nearly a perfect week. The local index was up 154pts to yesterdays close in the first 4 days, giving back around a third of the gains on the final day. A further escalation in tensions in the Ukraine was largely to blame for the weakness and as is often been the case, traders have looked to take money off the table at the end of the week rather than risk 2 days of news flow without liquidity. Despite that there was some support into the afternoon and the index finished +85pts from their lows around midday.
MM are selling PDN in the Emerging Companies Portfolio, taking a loss around 72c
The ASX200 again tested the psychological 7200 area late yesterday morning before drifting lower and ultimately surrendering over half of its morning’s gains to close up just 35-points for the day. We may be only 2-months into 2022 but MM’s view that the year would be characterised by significant volatility on both the stock and sector level is looking even more on point than even we imagined, a quick scan of some of the major winners & losers over the last 9-weeks says it all:
A choppy session for the ASX overall today with some big divergence between the haves and have nots, the Resources & Energy sectors again the beacon of hope while Healthcare and Staples tapered off. While it was a positive day overall, only around 50% of companies on the ASX finished in the green, and their were some big moves on either side of the ledger.
The ASX200 delivered a stellar performance on Wednesday by rallying 20-points in the wake of a 600-point plunge by the Dow – as we said yesterday “MM still feels that stocks want to trade higher”. We may have seen 65% of stocks decline yesterday but the stellar gains across the Energy, Gold and Resources Sectors was enough to carry the index higher. Some subscribers may have been surprised to see our sell alerts cross their screens yesterday but I remind you of a couple of famous investing quotes plus a personal favourite of one of the MM team:
A solid underbelly from the market today to close marginally higher despite US stocks falling more than 1.5% overnight plus our influential banking sector ended the session lower. Energy again the standout with Oil up ~10% in Asia, which is huge while the broader Materials sector was also bullish. The composition of our index, being tilted towards resources helped the local market outperform the US by ~5% in February and continues to have a positive impact, this was a key call for MM this year.
We are reducing our exposure to Oil & Gold across various portfolio’s.
Tuesday saw the ASX200 gain 0.7% but It was significantly higher at lunchtime before US futures started drifting lower reminding local investors that Eastern Europe is in the midst of a very scary war. Gains were still broad based with almost 70% of stocks closing up on the day but a reversal by the big miners reined in the markets gain even as the IT Sector surged well over 5% – with the current Ukraine crisis stock / sector rotation moves are struggling to be sustainable for more than a few days.
A solid morning session for the ASX with the market peaking +110points higher at midday before the afternoon was filled with sell orders, a +47pt gain a disappointment overall. The IT stocks were strong rallying +5.66% as a group to be the clear standout – when this sector rallies, it will rally hard, however it has experienced a few false starts of late. We’re bullish tech in the short term and can see a short, sharp aggressive bounce unfolding from here.
