The ASX200 was clobbered -1.65% yesterday following savage declines on Wall Street, only the healthcare & gold names caught any semblance of a bid while consumer stocks followed their US peers sharply lower around concerns of rising wages / operating costs. Equities are continuing to adjust to higher inflation and interest rates but we believe it’s now predominantly fears of a potential recession on the horizon that’s become investors’ main focus, as we approach the mid-point of 2022 MM feels we probably need a sniff of slowing inflation before markets can find a meaningful bottom.
The ASX200 enjoyed a strong “risk-on” session on Wednesday which resulted in a gain of 1% fuelled by over 70% of the main board advancing, gains were led by the recently underperforming Resources, Consumer Discretionary and IT Sectors while selling was noticeable in some of the traditionally more defensive names – a day early after last night! The index has been range-bound between 6750 and 7650 for almost 15-months and yesterday we closed basically exactly in the middle of the range, whatever technical methods some subscribers may prefer it’s hard not to have a neutral bias towards the underlying index whereas beneath the hood the story has been different on the stock and sector level due to a number of major macro events.
The ASX200 managed to close above the psychological 7100 level yesterday courtesy of strong performances by the banking and resources stocks i.e. the value stocks continue to outperform the jittery growth names. Overall we felt it was a solid performance from a market that’s slowly regaining its mojo after its 9% pullback over the previous 4-weeks, noticeably it shrugged off some hawkish comments from the RBA which would probably have sent the market sharply lower only a few weeks ago:
Monday saw the ASX200 surrender most of its early gains as soft Chinese economic data led to weakness both locally and by overnight US futures. As would be expected, when China’s economy appears to be “struggling”, albeit largely self-inflicted due to its COVID lockdowns, our Resources Sector was the main intra-day drag on the index with BHP Group (BHP), OZ Minerals (OZL), RIO Tinto (RIO) and Fortescue Metals (FMG) all falling away to close lower after a strong initial opening.
As today’s title suggests this time next weekend may deliver Australia a new Prime Minister, the bookmakers have Labor as a clear favourite but such is the huge macro influences at play in today’s stock market Morrison, Albanese etc are hardly getting a meaningful mention in terms of driving stocks in either direction. So far as we all know 2022 has been all about surging inflation and bond yields e.g. Australian 3-year bond yields have already more than tripled this year and we’re still not into June. The ASX200 has dipped more than 9% over the last few weeks and investors have become more bearish than I can recall since the GFC.
The ASX200 was smacked -1.75% yesterday in a session that both felt and looked awful, aggressive selling hit the futures market as soon as stocks opened and it didn’t take a backward step all day – intraday alone the SPI futures fell 110-points compounding the negative opening courtesy of further weakness on Wall Street. Not surprisingly all 11 sectors fell on Thursday but tech was again the standout dropping -8.7%, a sector move that would usually be associated with a quarter as opposed to one day!
For a second consecutive day, the ASX200 recovered strongly from early morning losses and although the markets still well down for both the week and month it’s finally attracting some bargain hunters into weakness. Ultimately we only saw the market rally +0.2% on Wednesday but it was a solid performance considering National Australia Bank (NAB) and ResMed (RMD) traded ex-dividend plus the overall Banking Sector drifted lower, on the positive side of the ledger the healthcare / real estate stocks finally enjoyed a bounce. Volatility remains the constant so far in 2022 as the index continues to rotate between 6700 and 7650, it’s now 13-months and counting.
The ASX200 fell another 1% yesterday although we finally saw some bargain hunters enter the market mid-morning after a ~$1.75bn dollar stop appeared to be triggered in the SPI Futures as we finally saw some signs of panic capitulation style selling – traders usually look for such moves before calling a market bottom. The recovery was reasonably broad-based as we went from only 2% of the ASX200 being up on the day to 33% come the close with a number of high beta growth stocks catching a distinct recovery style bid tone e.g. REA Group (REA) +5.5% and Xero (XRO) +4.2%.
The ASX200 took another tumble on Monday taking Mays decline to well over 4% in just over a week, the selling was again broad based with well over 80% of the main board closing in the red - the “buy the dip” mantra has vanished almost as fast as investors’ appetite for bonds. We are not seeing any fresh trends emerge it’s just a simple continuation of the last 6-months with any stocks trading on high valuations or potentially optimistic future earnings being dumped as investors move increasingly towards defensive names and cash, just a few simple examples from yesterday’s trading sums up the current market sentiment:
The news & rhetoric coming out of China reminded me and a I’m sure a few others of George Orwell’s famous last novel – 1984! The communist party has kept 25 million people locked down in Shanghai for around 6-weeks as it continues to strive to meet its Covid-zero strategy, they’ve turned the streets into ghost towns and are almost jailing positive cases in “quarantine centres”, I can’t imagine being confined in an average sized apartment in the countries most populated city for that length of time. The rest of the world is living with the virus while President Xi Jinping’s basically doubling down on his probably unrealistic ambitions:
The ASX200 enjoyed a strong “risk-on” session on Wednesday which resulted in a gain of 1% fuelled by over 70% of the main board advancing, gains were led by the recently underperforming Resources, Consumer Discretionary and IT Sectors while selling was noticeable in some of the traditionally more defensive names – a day early after last night! The index has been range-bound between 6750 and 7650 for almost 15-months and yesterday we closed basically exactly in the middle of the range, whatever technical methods some subscribers may prefer it’s hard not to have a neutral bias towards the underlying index whereas beneath the hood the story has been different on the stock and sector level due to a number of major macro events.
The ASX200 managed to close above the psychological 7100 level yesterday courtesy of strong performances by the banking and resources stocks i.e. the value stocks continue to outperform the jittery growth names. Overall we felt it was a solid performance from a market that’s slowly regaining its mojo after its 9% pullback over the previous 4-weeks, noticeably it shrugged off some hawkish comments from the RBA which would probably have sent the market sharply lower only a few weeks ago:
Monday saw the ASX200 surrender most of its early gains as soft Chinese economic data led to weakness both locally and by overnight US futures. As would be expected, when China’s economy appears to be “struggling”, albeit largely self-inflicted due to its COVID lockdowns, our Resources Sector was the main intra-day drag on the index with BHP Group (BHP), OZ Minerals (OZL), RIO Tinto (RIO) and Fortescue Metals (FMG) all falling away to close lower after a strong initial opening.
As today’s title suggests this time next weekend may deliver Australia a new Prime Minister, the bookmakers have Labor as a clear favourite but such is the huge macro influences at play in today’s stock market Morrison, Albanese etc are hardly getting a meaningful mention in terms of driving stocks in either direction. So far as we all know 2022 has been all about surging inflation and bond yields e.g. Australian 3-year bond yields have already more than tripled this year and we’re still not into June. The ASX200 has dipped more than 9% over the last few weeks and investors have become more bearish than I can recall since the GFC.
The ASX200 was smacked -1.75% yesterday in a session that both felt and looked awful, aggressive selling hit the futures market as soon as stocks opened and it didn’t take a backward step all day – intraday alone the SPI futures fell 110-points compounding the negative opening courtesy of further weakness on Wall Street. Not surprisingly all 11 sectors fell on Thursday but tech was again the standout dropping -8.7%, a sector move that would usually be associated with a quarter as opposed to one day!
For a second consecutive day, the ASX200 recovered strongly from early morning losses and although the markets still well down for both the week and month it’s finally attracting some bargain hunters into weakness. Ultimately we only saw the market rally +0.2% on Wednesday but it was a solid performance considering National Australia Bank (NAB) and ResMed (RMD) traded ex-dividend plus the overall Banking Sector drifted lower, on the positive side of the ledger the healthcare / real estate stocks finally enjoyed a bounce. Volatility remains the constant so far in 2022 as the index continues to rotate between 6700 and 7650, it’s now 13-months and counting.
The ASX200 fell another 1% yesterday although we finally saw some bargain hunters enter the market mid-morning after a ~$1.75bn dollar stop appeared to be triggered in the SPI Futures as we finally saw some signs of panic capitulation style selling – traders usually look for such moves before calling a market bottom. The recovery was reasonably broad-based as we went from only 2% of the ASX200 being up on the day to 33% come the close with a number of high beta growth stocks catching a distinct recovery style bid tone e.g. REA Group (REA) +5.5% and Xero (XRO) +4.2%.
The ASX200 took another tumble on Monday taking Mays decline to well over 4% in just over a week, the selling was again broad based with well over 80% of the main board closing in the red - the “buy the dip” mantra has vanished almost as fast as investors’ appetite for bonds. We are not seeing any fresh trends emerge it’s just a simple continuation of the last 6-months with any stocks trading on high valuations or potentially optimistic future earnings being dumped as investors move increasingly towards defensive names and cash, just a few simple examples from yesterday’s trading sums up the current market sentiment:
The news & rhetoric coming out of China reminded me and a I’m sure a few others of George Orwell’s famous last novel – 1984! The communist party has kept 25 million people locked down in Shanghai for around 6-weeks as it continues to strive to meet its Covid-zero strategy, they’ve turned the streets into ghost towns and are almost jailing positive cases in “quarantine centres”, I can’t imagine being confined in an average sized apartment in the countries most populated city for that length of time. The rest of the world is living with the virus while President Xi Jinping’s basically doubling down on his probably unrealistic ambitions:
