After charging hard in the prior two session, the bulls in the US took a bit of a breather overnight. US markets still finished higher, but only marginally. Commodities were solid but not spectacular. SPI Futures down 27 points after a big local session yesterday. Get up to speed with Henry’s Breakfast Briefing.
Sign up for a free trial to get full access to expert insights and independent stock market research.
After charging hard in the prior two session, the bulls in the US took a bit of a breather overnight. US markets still finished higher, but only marginally. Commodities were solid but not spectacular. SPI Futures down 27 points after a big local session yesterday. Get up to speed with Henry’s Breakfast Briefing.
Sign up for a free trial to get full access to expert insights and independent stock market research.
*PLEASE NOTE: Transcripts are autogenerated and may contain errors.
Henry Jennings 00:10
Good morning and welcome to the Marcus Today breakfast briefing. My name is Henry Jennings, and it is a Thursday, the ninth of December. And as usual with all the information contained in this briefing, it is general advice only. So please do your own research. Contact your own financial advisor regarding any of the thoughts, ideas or insights in this briefing. And if you need to, of course, you can always pause the PowerPoint slide here and read our disclaimer in full. If you're listening on a podcast, you can head on over to our website, marcustoday.com.au. And you can read the disclaimer there. And if you're not yet a member of the Marcus Today community and you're listening to this on podcast, you can also sign up for a free 14 day trial there what better Christmas present for your loved one.
Henry Jennings 00:55
Okay, well last night we had a mixed session on the dow a little bit of Higgledy Piggledy in the end of the Markets closed positive, which was a good thing, the Dow eking out a gain of 35 points, or 0.1 of a percent 35,755 heading towards that 3600 or 36,000 level, again, NASDAQ up 100 points, or 0.64% 15,787 Will it hit 16,000 before Christmas, Apple hitting all time highs and so close to being a $3 trillion company that was quite something. So NASDAQ pushing up again, S&P 500 as usual in the middle, the middle 0.31 of a percent higher, 14 points 4701 Just clearing that 4700 level. And as you would expect, given all the optimism that's currently around VIX index falling two points back down to 20. Down 8.73%. And spent we'll see more of a slide in that as the week progresses last two days, although we do of course, have US inflation numbers on Friday. So that could cause a little bit of volatility. But as we head into Christmas, people will be winding down their exposures and taking some money off the table spy futures in this put down 27 points or 0..36% 7390. But we have had two pretty good days on the ASX 200. So it remains to be seen today whether the slight blip downwards will cause some of those who missed out in the last two days to try and pick up some cheap stock.
Henry Jennings 02:34
The US market very much affected last night by COVID variant Omnicron, and whether it is treatable with the vaccines whether the vaccines are effective, but the US is still having around 100,000 cases a day. And we have seen the new restrictions put in place by the UK Government as well which did affect the UK and European markets to the downside coming off their recent spurting highs. So that is certainly a factor at play at the moment. So still more to come on the Omnicron variant and its effect on people, hospitalizations, and of course, mortality there. So that's still bubbling away in the back of people's minds. But at the moment, US markets setting fair and our market doing pretty well in the last couple of days making back pretty much all that it lost since last Wednesday or Thursday. In Commodities we saw Brent crude up 0.5 of a percent 38 cents 7582 WTI at 0.43 of a percent 31 cents to 7236 Gold a smidge higher 80 cents 1785 50 and iron ore down $1.55 or 1.43% to 107 US dollars a tonne Ozzy dollar 7171.
Henry Jennings 03:51
Other commodities last night we're firm copper up nearly 0.9% nickel up nearly half percent aluminium up 0.1 zinc having a good night 2.6% Better lead up 3.9% and tin turn up 1.3% As a result of all this we saw in resource docs overseas bhp ADRs down 0.35 wrote down 0.4 for Freeport McMoRan down at 0.1 of a percent. Alcoa had a good night up 3.45% tech down 1.4 Anglo American down 0.1 Glencore up half volley up half percent and Albemarle lithium producer up nearly 2% last night so some good results there. Here you can see the US S&P 500 After a little bit of a wobble again, it had had let's face it two really extremely bullish days. We did see the market rally into the close which was a positive for the market and maybe that 27 Point fall on the S&P Spite futures for our ASX index are a little bit too pessimistic.
Henry Jennings 04:58
As far as major stories go Last night, FISA vaccine provides less immunity against Omicron than other variants suggest booster shots are the answer. The Senate strikes a deal to raise the debt ceiling and stave off a default. And economists now expect a full taper of Fed bond buys by end March. Amid soaring inflation and falling unemployment nice alliteration there thanks Chris.
Henry Jennings 05:21
Omnicron underscores Feds balancing act and continuing to support the economy while preventing inflation from spiralling higher, and India's Central bank holds interest rates steady. And America's pandemic era excess savings starting to dwindle for many which could dampen consumer spending. And we're also seeing consumers head back to physical stores rather than the clicking that we know so well.
Henry Jennings 05:45
Japan has downgraded Q3 GDP on a hit to consumer spending, and manufacturer sentiment rises to a four month high in December in Japan, Taiwan exports hit record highs and Jack ban Chinese stocks, junk dollar bonds, and won all advanced as investors increasingly sure Evergrande never Grande is no Lehman moment. What's on today for our market.
Henry Jennings 06:10
We have Phil Lowe speaking on the payment system at 9am. This follows hotly on the heels of Josh Frydenberg yesterday talking about regulation of the crypto space they're now talking about Buy now pay later fees may be able to be passed on to customers by retailers. That would be interesting because the Buy Now Pay Later story is not about Australia anymore. Australia was the beta testing ground for buy now pay later. The rest of the world is now it's play thing but obviously increased regulation of buy now pay later would have an effect.
Henry Jennings 06:45
Chinese November CPI and PPI today we saw Tesla up 1.1% In the US apple up 2% matter the artist formerly known as Facebook up 2.7% And the NYSC. Fang Index up half a percent. We had Google doing well up 0.6 of a percent Microsoft unchanged. US banks though ease JP Morgan down 1.1 Citigroup down 0.7 and Wells Fargo down 1.7 healthcare and communications services were the best of the nine S&P industry sectors in the US and new cases in the US have climbed for an average of nearly 95,000 A day in November 22 to almost 119,000 A day this week and UK imposes new restrictions. Certainly no more government Christmas parties at number 1010 year yields in the US 1.51% Australia 1.61 us catching up at the moment Germany down at 0.32%. That's a negative 0.32% Barnaby Joyce has tested positive for something at least COVID-19 whilst in the US and eBOSS is buying a medical device business life health care for 1.16 7 billion, raising quite a big $742 million. The raising has been done at $34.50 New Zealand a share, which was a 5.5% discount to the last close. Lithium at play at fire fence which is aiming to become the world's third biggest producer of lithium is raising $80 million. Recent DFS from its Marley project has been the driver of that released in the last few days.
Henry Jennings 08:31
Santos is selling a 300 million US stake to Japanese LNG company JIRA and its Bourassa gas projects and Trafigura group is planning to build a 750 million green hydrogen plant at Port Perry in South Australia target date for first phase of production 2025 to be able to produce 20 tonnes a day and Conoco Phillips has notified origin energy that is exercising his pre emptive right to purchase up to an additional 10% shareholding in the Australia Pacific LNG for up to 1.6 4 billion US who said fossil fuel investment is dead. And Magellan has been quite pretty much in the news at the moment with the separation of Hamish and his wife Alexandra, but has been quietly cutting fees to wealth managers for some of its platform project products. New the new product for managed account fees are now down 50 basis points and it does not have a performance fee which is just as well because the funds are not performing.
Henry Jennings 09:33
And the ACCC has announced that it has no issues with the Sydney Airport takeover, mainly because there is no competition at the moment. And there will be no competition after the Sydney Airport takeover.
Henry Jennings 09:49
Question of the day to day. What do you see as the biggest risk in 2022? Clearly there's a few out there and inflation being the most obvious But we've also got tapering and withdrawal of stimulus and COVID What is the Black Swan risk maybe in 2022 love to hear your thoughts and ideas and insights on that one on Facebook. You can always head on over to the discussion group love to have your thoughts there. It's a great group three and a half 1000 members helping members. Also don't forget that our podcasts are now coming in four streams. We have the Marcus Strategy Podcast, The On the Desk podcast, and the On The Couch podcast with myself. And also of course the breakfast and end of day podcast. You can subscribe to 123 or four of all those podcasts. And also don't forget put it in your diaries It's a Christmas special what would Christmas be without a Christmas special, but we do have the Ask the analyst Christmas special next Friday 530 webinar. Once again you have to register but it will be a fast and furious free flowing discussion about some of the stocks that you are focusing on. And if we get enough registrations over 200 Then I will wear a Santa suit.
Henry Jennings 11:03
That's it for me today. Thanks very much for listening, and have a great day.