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Morning Bell 16 October

Grady Wulff
October 16, 2024

Wall Streets’ green run ended on Tuesday with the major averages move away from record territory as investors digest some key Q3 earnings results. The Dow Jones fell 0.75%, the S&P500 lost 0.76%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.01%. UnitedHealth fell 8.1% after the company trimmed full-year earnings outlook, while Bank of America rallied 2% on better-than-expected results.

Citi shares fell over 4% on Tuesday even after the big bank beat Wall St expectations for Q3, and LVMH shares fell nearly 7% to their lowest level since October 2022 after the luxury fashion house posted disappointing results.

Over in Europe overnight, markets closed lower as investors responded to key earnings updates and monitored a sharp fall in oil prices. The STOXX 600 fell 0.7%, Germany’s DAX closed down 0.11%, the French CAC lost 1.05% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 ended the day down 0.52%.

Dutch semiconductor maker ASML tumbled over 15% after the company said in its earnings report that it expects net sale for 2025 to come in between 30 billion euros and 35 billion euros, at the lower half of the range it had previously provided.

Across the Asia region, markets closed mostly lower as China’s weak trade data weighed on investor sentiment in the region. China’s CSI index lost 2.66% on Tuesday after the nation’s September trade data showed exports rose 2.4% YoY and imports added just 0.3%, with both metrics sharply missing expectations. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 3.67% on Tuesday, but Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.77%.

The local market extended this week’s rally into Tuesday’s session with a gain of 0.8% at the closing bell after hitting fresh intraday highs, buoyed by the banks with CBA rising 1.6%, Westpac adding 1.3%, ANZ rising 0.8% and NAB gaining 1.3%.

Tyro Payments tanked over 15% on Tuesday on news that the federal government of Australia is planning to crackdown on credit card surcharges by 2026, with the government even saying it will go as far as banning the practice to give consumers and small businesses a fair go. This move would impact Tyro Payments among other payment service providers that rely on such fees for earnings.

Hub24 rose 4.3% on Tuesday after posting record quarterly net inflows of $4bn announced in the company’s latest trading update while total funds under administration hit $113bn in the quarter.

What to watch today:

  • Ahead of the midweek trading session here in Australia the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX to open the day down 0.38% on the back of Wall Street’s turbulence overnight.
  • On the commodities front this morning, oil has tumbled 4.68% to trade at US$70.40/barrel, gold is up 0.55% at US$2663.90/ounce and iron ore is up 0.63% at US$107.11/tonne.
  • The Aussie dollar has weakened overnight to buy US$0.67, 100.15 Japanese Yen, 51.27 British Pence and NZ$1.10.

Trading Ideas:

  • Bell Potter has downgraded the rating on The a2 Milk Company (ASX:A2M) from a hold to a sell and have slightly reduced the 12-month price target on the company from $6.20 to $6.10 in-light of a recent share price gain on expectations of a rebound in demand in China. The analyst sees A2M trading at 17.5x FY25 expected EBITDA as not supported by any fundamental changes and sees better value elsewhere, especially given the rally puts A2M trading at a 51% premium to Dairy FMCG plays.
  • And Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Accent Group (ASX:AX1) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 38-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $2.44 to the range of $2.82 to $2.90 according to standard principles of technical analysis.

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