Daily Market Reports | Jul 01 2011
By Greg Peel
The Dow rose 152 points or 1.3% while the S&P gained 1.0% and the Nasdaq added 1.2%.
Pop quiz: Did Wall Street finish higher or lower on the June quarter?
The simple assumption is lower, given the April-June period has been all about the Greek correction with overtones of the US “soft patch”. Not to mention that the Japanese tsunami occurred in March, meaning the June quarter has copped the brunt of the financial impact. And that the rate of growth in Chinese manufacturing slowed to almost flat in the period, according to the PMIs.
Well in actual fact the Dow finished higher for the quarter, by 0.8%. It's amazing what a four-day rally can do. It also highlights the fact that this latest Greek correction was a comparatively languid one compared to those occurring last year. The broad market S&P 500 did finish lower, but by only 0.4%, and the Nasdaq closed 0.3% down.
Last night the Greek parliament passed the implementation bill for its new austerity package – the last hurdle. This means Greece survives for another month. The IMF will again audit progress after July and make the assessment as to whether or not Greece has sufficiently complied and thus may have its next tranche of bail-out funds. With European officials set to decide soon on the 2012 bail-out fund, one presumes we will be going through this routine for at least another 18 months.
It is unlikely the process will be as tough as this month's has been for at least a little while now that the new austerity package is set for implementation, but the problem has not gone away. It has just been “kicked down the road,” as the latest trendy catch-phrase suggests. Last night the German finance ministry announced that German banks were prepared to voluntarily extend the maturities of Greek sovereign bond holdings, which is another step towards avoiding actual default. For now.
The euro thus rallied once more, to over US$1.45, as traders set their sights on next week's expected ECB rate rise. The US dollar index fell 0.4% to 74.38 and the Aussie added 0.4% to US$1.0722.
Vale QE2. Listen – can you hear it? It's the sound of silence. At the close of business in New York last night the US Treasury switched off the money printers. From here on the Fed will only reinvest the proceeds and maturities in its balance sheet and not buy any more securities with funny money. The US economy is on its own. How it fares in the big wide world will determine whether those printers get switched on again in about another six month's time.
This week Wall Street has been madly selling out of US Treasuries ahead of the exit of the guaranteed buyer. That money has found its way into stocks and commodities it would appear, unless this week has been no more than one of rampant window dressing. If that is the case, we'll see a poor start to the September quarter. Today in Australia we'll see just how much of yesterday's action represented the illegal activity of artificially pushing up fund returns at the end of the period.
As stocks have rallied this week on Wall Street, bond prices have fallen. The benchmark ten-year yield closed up another 5bps last night to 3.16%. The end of QE2 also prompted a ceremonial selling of gold, down US$12.20 to US$1499.60/oz, to mark the end of the US dollar's downward manipulation.
Silver was also trimmed by 0.5% but base metals mostly pushed higher once more, with copper up another 1% ahead of books-close. After its big rally on Wednesday night, Brent was flat last night at US$112.48/bbl while West Texas added US65c to US$95.42.
And after the big rally in the ASX 200 yesterday, the SPI Overnight is up only 19 points or 0.4%.
With Greece supposedly out of the way attention will return in the US to economic matters, beginning today with the global manufacturing PMI readings over the next 24 hours. Last night the Chicago PMI, which is seen as a precursor to the US national PMI, broke a three-month losing streak in jumping to 61.1 from 56.6 when economists had expected a fall to 55.0. This result would have added an extra boost to last night's trade.
US commentators have also been surprised that so far there hasn't been much of a “confession session” ahead of the beginning of the June quarter earnings season on July 11. There is an expectation that seemingly too-strong corporate earnings estimates will need to be trimmed. So either we have to wait for the actual results to take the pain, or there'll be no pain. We recall that Nike, for one, blew Wall Street out of the water this week with its out-of-season result and sparked a plus 10% rally in Nike shares.
Before we get that far, it's a long weekend in the US for Yankee Doodle Dandy and all that.
So Happy New Year and all the best for FY12. I'll be appearing on Business View on the Sky Business channel today at 2pm.
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