Market wraps 19th October 2022
Morning Bell - Grady Wulff
The US markets rallied more than 1% for most of the day on Tuesday before closing the session marginally lower, with the Dow Jones & S&P500 adding 1.12% and 1.14% respectively, while the Nasdaq closed just under 1% higher, with the boosted higher by stronger than expected earnings out of Goldman Sachs, particularly on the bonds trading front. The big banks in the US reporting solid results overseas eased investor fears of a recession as the results shows investors are still spending. We are seeing these big swings in markets of late due to a see-saw effect of consumer spending remaining high, which eases recession fears, against inflation remaining stubbornly high causing central banks to raise rates to dampen spending and potentially send economies into recession. Investors are constantly torn between recessionary fears and inflationary fears. For markets to settle down investors will need to see economic growth with lower levels of inflation.
Over in the UK and Europe, the global rally extended into a fourth consecutive day in Europe with Germany’s DAX adding almost 1% on Tuesday and the French CAC lifting 0.44%, while the UK’s FTSE100 closed Tuesday’s session 0.24% higher following the move by the UK’s new finance minister to cut backtrack on all tax cuts announced at the country’s mini-budget in September.
On the commodities front, it’s a red start to the day across most commodities with brent crude oil trading down 1.14% at US$90.62 per barrel, natural gas is down more than 4%, iron ore is trading 1.55% lower at US$95 per tonne. Gold is trading just 0.07% higher at US$1651 per ounce and lithium is trading flat.
What to watch today:
- The ASX futures are expecting the local market to open 0.43% lower despite another strong session on Wall Street overnight.
- On the economic data front, US housing permits and building permits data for September will be released tonight with the markets expecting a decline on both metrics from August, while investors locally will be awaiting the release of Australia's unemployment data for September out tomorrow, with the forecast for a decline to 3.4% from 3.5%.
- The Aussie dollar has weakened to buy 62.98 US cents, 55.26 British Pence, 94.06 Japanese yen and 1 New Zealand dollar and 11 cents.
- Stocks going ex-dividend today include Spheria Emerging Companies (ASX:SEC). If you have been thinking about these stocks it might be worth considering buying in today as stocks going ex-dividend generally trade lower on the ex-dividend date.
Trading Ideas:
- Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Weebit Nano (ASX:WBT) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 19-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $2.36 to the range of $2.63 to $2.69 according to standard principles of technical analysis.
- Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on Woodside Energy (ASX:WDS) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 16-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $32.88 to the range of $26.75 to $28.00 according to standard principles of technical analysis.