What Matters Today: Coal stocks are back in focus, again!

The ASX200 fell over 0.5% yesterday courtesy of some broad-based weakness, by the close over 70% of the main board closed lower with all 11 sectors retreating. The main mover on the day was AGL Energy (AGL) which tumbled -10.33% following a weak 1H result and downgrade to full-year guidance, a disappointing combination however overall it was a fairly quiet session that again saw the index traverse the psychological 7500 area.

Last year saw the ASX rally into April before experiencing a decent correction as bond yields soared to multi-month highs, at this stage, we feel 2023 might take longer to deliver the next meaningful swing as central banks feel likely to be unwavering towards the stance on inflation, at least for now.

Interestingly after discussing yesterday, 1000’s of people are losing their jobs, just as the RBA and Fed become increasingly hawkish, we saw Disney (DIS US) report their quarterly result after the US close yesterday, the stock was up (we own) after the release which included news that they were cutting 7,000 jobs – other major examples in 2023 have been Dell 6,500, PayPal 2,000, Zoom 1,300, IBM 3,900, Spotify 6,600, Alphabet (Google) 12,000, Microsoft 10,000, Amazon.com 18,000, Salesforce 7,000 and Goldman Sachs 3,200 – not a hard trend to identify!

Central banks keep quoting strong employment numbers as the main reason allowing them to keep hiking, MM believes they will need a fresh line in the sand sooner rather than later.

US indices slipped into Friday as bullish exhaustion was in the air after an early +1% rally reversed lower following recessionary signals from bonds, ongoing hawkish commentary from the Fed and an increase in bullishness from retail investors i.e. the latter is often used as a contrarian indicator. Most pundits are calling the Fed funds rate to top out around 5% but option traders are increasingly placing bets targeting 6%! The S&P500 finished the day -0.8% with the SPI Futures pointing to a -0.35% dip this morning.

The US 2-year yield is now exceeding the 10-years by the greatest amount since the 1980’s, such inversion very often precedes a recession.

scroll

OPINION
ACTION

Latest Reports

Morning report 10/11/2025 09:49

Macro Monday: The market’s animal spirits are waning

The stock market didn’t crash last week, but after 7-months of “risk-on” enthusiasm, cracks have started to emerge. Rich valuations and fresh doubts over the real-world payoff of AI dragged US tech stocks to their worst week since April.

Weekend report 08/11/2025 08:26

Weekend Q&A: Corporate Australia weighs on the ASX

The ASX 200 finished the week down -1.3%, sliding to new 9-week lows on Friday and marking 7 declines in the past 9 trading sessions. Only the energy sector provided meaningful support to the index, while technology, resources, and rate-sensitive areas such as consumer discretionary and real estate noticeably underperformed.

Afternoon report 07/11/2025 17:27

The Match Out: Weaker corporate news flow sinks stocks

Lots of corporate news across the ticker today, most of it was negative. Weaker results from Macquarie, sluggish domestic travel volumes at Qantas, higher costs for Afterpay owner Block, a weaker 2H outlook for advertising business oOmedia, mid-single digit growth (only) for REA Group and a near halving of share price for Alliance Aviation – it’s easy to understand why the market traded lower to end another softer week for equities.

Morning report 08/11/2025 08:49

ETF Friday: Is it time to “Buy the Dip” in the AI Trade using ETFs?

The ASX 200 bounced +0.3% on Thursday, helped by a strong session for the miners and energy names. Some stability in the likes of gold and iron ore was enough to push the sector higher, with all but a handful of names posting solid gains. The top-200 surged almost 70-points in early trade, but handed back more than half those gains as momentum waned in the afternoon, led by a couple of negative surprises on the stock level:

Afternoon report 06/11/2025 17:43

The Match Out: ASX halts multi day slide, NAB result misses

The ASX 200 edged higher snapping a multi-day slide as miners and gold stocks rebounded on firmer commodity prices. Sentiment spilled over from US markets following a buy-the-dip rally on Wall Street, though the push higher was muted by a weaker session for banks after a softer result from NAB and WBC trading ex-dividend.

Morning report 06/11/2025 10:43

What Matters Today: Is the bull market in rare earths already over?

The ASX 200 slipped 0.11% on Wednesday, with investors taking a more risk-off stance across most sectors and stocks. The materials sector weighed the heaviest on the day, ably supported by tech names, which followed in the footsteps of overseas weakness across the “AI Trade”.

Afternoon report 05/11/2025 17:28

The Match Out: ASX down, Goodman reconfirms guidance

A choppy session for the ASX today, hit early to be down ~80pts at the lows, before staging an impressive recovery to finish only mildly lower. IT, Materials and Real-Estate were the main targets, with some decent moves lower in some areas, particularly the Uranium, Gold, Lithium & Rare-Earth stocks, following similar moves overseas. A higher U.S Dollar is weighing on this trade in the short term, though we don’t doubt that theme will last.

Morning report 05/11/2025 09:55

Portfolio Positioning: The RBA hits the market just when it’s down

The ASX200 fell away from the get-go on Tuesday, and was not helped by a relatively hawkish rate hold from the RBA at 2.30pm. However, not all blame should be placed at the door of Michele Bullock & Co., the market opened down and was already on the skids as the US futures fell away after valuation concerns sent Palantir Technologies Inc (PLTR US) lower, even after an impressive post-market report from the software and AI company.

Afternoon report 04/11/2025 17:09

The Match Out: Stocks drop; RBA holds rates unchanged as expected

The ASX 200 slid to a six-week low with the RBA’s final decision of the year yielding no change to the cash rate – 10/11 sectors were down on low activity due to the Melbourne Cup shenanigans

Morning report 05/11/2025 08:33

What Matters Today: Can the Banking sector defy sceptics and follow Westpac higher?

The ASX 200 produced a strong recovery on Monday afternoon to close up +0.2%, more than 0.7% off its late morning low. Westpac (WBC) drove the banks and ASX higher as investors took an increasingly bullish view of its FY25 result, the longer the day progressed - more on the banks later. In typical 2025 fashion, moves on the stock and sector level were very polarised on the first trading day of November, with the financials adding more than +38 points to the main board while materials and healthcare names detracted over -28 points.