0:02

A listener production. A

0:06

slightly better day for Aussie stocks as investors

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brace for a busy talent of the week.

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And find out why the big eye and all players

0:13

were in focus today. Good afternoon, I'm

0:16

Steve. I'm Laura. It's Tuesday the

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9th of April. Welcome to the Comsec Market

0:20

Update. Good afternoon. Good

0:22

afternoon, Laura. Well, another day, another dollar

0:24

and the Aussie market has finished higher

0:26

for a second straight day. Not

0:29

bad. I'm sorry that you took the

0:31

words right out of my mouth because at the moment

0:33

leading into the close, we're up by 34 points or

0:35

roughly around half of 1%. Now

0:39

if we look at what happened on US share

0:41

markets last night, they were basically flat. So I

0:43

guess we're outperforming them. But if we look back

0:45

to yesterday's session, we underperformed them. We did a

0:47

lot worse than they did. So I think we're

0:49

playing a little bit of catch up as well.

0:51

It was a very uneventful session in the US

0:53

last night, completely flat. And this I think is

0:56

partly ahead of a very busy

0:58

couple of days. We've got the latest

1:00

US inflation data tomorrow night, minutes from

1:02

the Federal Reserve as well, from the

1:04

latest decision on rates not too long

1:06

ago, the start of the quarterly profit

1:09

reporting season on Friday in the US

1:11

too, interest rate decisions from a number

1:13

of major economies and commodity prices,

1:15

which have been a bit mixed. Yeah, there's

1:17

been a lot to be looking at and a

1:19

lot to be waiting for coming up to the

1:22

later part of the week. And I guess markets

1:24

tend to be a little bit cautious leading into

1:26

those sorts of times. So we'll wait and see

1:28

what comes out of tomorrow night's numbers. But

1:31

until then, if we look at what happened in

1:33

today's market across the sectors, we're seeing

1:35

four of the 11 sectors easing leading

1:38

into the close. We're seeing the property

1:40

sector doing absolutely worse. They're down by

1:42

around 1 percent, health care down half

1:44

a percent, energy down a third, telecom

1:47

down just about a tenth. On

1:49

the other end though, materials up

1:51

around one and a half percent

1:53

really driving today's gains. Because

1:56

of the rebound in iron ore prices that

1:58

we've had, which has been actually very helpful.

2:00

I mean, I know prices have had a

2:02

terrible start to 2024, you know, still down

2:04

roughly 30% this calendar

2:06

year, but they've done well over the past

2:08

day or two. And that has helped stocks

2:11

like Rio and BHP and Fortescue Metals lift

2:13

in between around 2% and about 3%, which

2:15

is quite helpful for three of

2:17

the largest stocks on our market. Yeah, they've

2:19

really been driving most of the gains. Now,

2:21

this all comes down to China and hopes

2:23

around what's going on there. So of course,

2:25

they've had a little bit of trouble with

2:27

their property market recently. And that's been they're

2:30

the top consumer of steel. So when

2:32

there's not really much demand coming from

2:34

there, then that can impact what we're

2:36

seeing with iron ore prices. And that's

2:38

why they've been quite sluggish. But at

2:40

the moment, there are hopes that Chinese

2:42

officials will up their efforts to provide

2:44

stimulus to their economy. And this should

2:46

also boost steel demand. So that sort

2:48

of optimism has been leading the iron

2:50

ore price higher. And that's been certainly helpful

2:52

for our market. And this is why we

2:54

we often do talk about China and what's

2:57

going on there. And this is just a

2:59

great example of how much it can impact

3:01

our share market. Today was really

3:03

busy for confidence surveys, we had a

3:05

number of different surveys on how people

3:07

are feeling about their finances. And also

3:10

another one on how business confidence is

3:12

sitting at one that received attention was

3:14

the Westpac release, and basically showed that

3:16

consumer confidence sank by 2.4% in April,

3:19

to very deeply pessimistic territory. So,

3:21

you know, consumers aren't really feeling

3:23

great about their finances, broadly speaking,

3:25

at the moment, few signs of

3:27

improvement for the time being as

3:29

well, with interest rates still at

3:32

relatively elevated levels, even though there are hopes

3:34

that at some stage over the next year,

3:36

you know, there could be rate cuts, nothing

3:38

concrete as of yet. So one of the

3:41

reasons we could perceptions about how the Aussie

3:43

economy is holding up at the moment. And

3:45

also one question which respondents are asked is

3:47

whether or not now is a good time

3:50

to buy a major household item. And that

3:52

reading fell quite heavily 6.6% lower in

3:54

April from where it was in March. And this

3:58

is roughly, you know, 1200. respondents

4:00

also. Retailers did okay today,

4:02

JB HiFi and Adair's still high and

4:05

they've actually bounced back so far this

4:07

year as well regardless. In

4:09

terms of the weekly look at

4:11

consumer confidence, that fell back as

4:14

well. Now on the other

4:16

end, inflation expectations, they went higher and

4:18

this is partly on the back of

4:20

higher oil prices which of course adds

4:22

pressure to the inflation story and that

4:25

explains why consumers might be a little

4:27

bit more nervous. In fact, the weekly

4:29

inflation expectation hit its highest level in

4:33

2024 so far. So it's an important

4:35

time for markets at the moment with

4:37

potential interest rate cuts coming and lots

4:39

of data that will potentially drive those

4:41

decisions. So let's look to plenty

4:44

of stocks in focus today, people of our

4:46

performance with any that caught your eye. Well

4:49

Ancel, so this is the medical

4:51

glove maker we talked about it

4:53

yesterday. They came out of their

4:55

trading halt this morning and

4:57

they did pretty well on the back

4:59

of yesterday's news. So just a reminder

5:01

for everyone, they announced they'll be buying

5:04

a personal protective equipment or PPE company

5:06

called Kimberly Clark for roughly 974

5:09

million Aussie dollars. So they'll look to raise

5:12

some of that money from investors to fund

5:14

the purchase but this essentially will help them

5:16

to grow their business. So with today

5:18

being the first chance for investors to respond to

5:21

that news, they saw shares hitting their highest level

5:23

in about nine months. The agribusiness elders

5:25

second best performer on the market

5:27

at this stage eight and a

5:29

half percent higher. Now importantly this follows

5:31

a near 25% tumble

5:34

for the stock yesterday where it was very

5:36

much the worst performer and this was all because of a

5:38

one-pager 350 word update from the group where it warned

5:43

that profits are probably going to drop 20

5:45

to 30 percent on what they made a

5:47

year earlier and because of generally speaking prices

5:49

of many of the products that they sell

5:51

have gone backwards. So things like cattle sheep

5:54

and crop protection chemicals included as well.

5:56

Today though the stock seemed to lift

5:58

partly because there were few brokers out

6:00

there that adjusted their expectations for where the

6:03

stock might be in 12 months time. It

6:05

was mixed, three actually reduced their price targets

6:07

and two raised them, but the stock still

6:09

bounced back today. Lion Town has

6:11

actually been today's top performer though, up

6:13

close to 9% leading

6:16

into the close. And last night we

6:18

saw lithium miners in the US in

6:20

focus. So Albemarle, the largest lithium miner

6:22

in the world rose by almost 7%

6:24

overnight. SQM, which is

6:26

the second largest based in Chile, had

6:28

a good session two up four and

6:30

a half percent after being approved to

6:32

take over Australia's azure minerals. So in

6:34

our local session today, we did see

6:37

azure up in the order of around

6:39

4%. In terms

6:41

of other lithium miners, they've been mostly higher

6:43

as well with the exception of just a

6:45

few. So for example, Pilbara up around 2%,

6:48

Arcadium up four. So not such a bad

6:50

session for lithium miners, but a reminder of

6:52

course, they have been having a little bit of

6:54

a rough time to say the least lately.

6:56

Brickworks trading ex-dividend today dropped about

6:58

70 cents or 2.6%. Now the

7:00

dividends paying out

7:03

is 24 cents and much less than that. And

7:05

they will be paid out to investors who are

7:08

eligible on the first of May. Brickworks, one

7:10

of the more consistent dividend payers on the

7:12

Aussie share market for quite a number of

7:15

decades, but the stock under pressure today. Still

7:17

looking at stocks that are on the

7:19

top performers list, Gold Miner, Red, 5

7:22

has been in focus. They're currently

7:24

the fourth best. They actually presented

7:26

at the Gold Forum in Europe

7:28

today, which is basically a meeting

7:30

of a whole bunch of Gold

7:32

miners basically connecting them with capital

7:34

investors from across the globe. So

7:36

they do presentations about their company,

7:38

how they've been performing their production

7:40

development and exploration efforts as well.

7:42

So the pack they presented

7:45

today is actually available to the public just

7:47

like any other announcement. So for those interested

7:49

in the Red 5 one, you can find

7:51

it wherever you usually get your news, but

7:53

it seems investors were quite happy about what

7:55

they had to say in that announcement today.

7:57

And Red 5 shares lifted to

7:59

their high end. highest level since May 2022.

8:02

Let's look forward. Not much out tonight at

8:05

all really on the US share market. There's

8:07

just an update on small business

8:09

optimism, which is not really a market moving

8:11

event as you might imagine. So it wouldn't

8:13

be surprising to see markets kind of being

8:15

a little cautious for the time being until

8:17

we get to the tail end of the

8:19

week. But tomorrow though, we'll be a little

8:21

busier, not so much in Australia. We just

8:23

have a few dividend payments for the likes

8:26

of News Corp and NIB, some figures on

8:28

building activity, which won't get too much attention.

8:30

It's more in the afternoon and evening, which

8:32

is going to be more interesting for us.

8:34

So we get an interest rate decision in

8:36

New Zealand tomorrow. We get the Bank of

8:38

Canada. We get inflation. We get minutes from

8:40

the US Central Bank. So that's all from

8:42

Wednesday night onwards. Absolutely. But we'll talk

8:44

more about that in tomorrow's podcast and

8:47

give you all the juicy details, which

8:49

I'm sure you can't wait to hear.

8:52

All right. Have a good one everyone. This

9:00

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9:02

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9:04

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