Daily Market Reports | Feb 23 2012
By Greg Peel
The Dow closed down 27 points or 0.2% while the S&P lost 0.3% to 1357 and the Nasdaq dropped 0.5%.
For the moment, Dow 13,000 seems like a bit of a bridge too far. With the dust now settled in Athens, at least for the time being, Wall Street is probably suffering headline withdrawal. The indices have all rallied around 20% and such a move often brings about at least a pause in proceedings, if not a peak. Now traders have to return to thinking fundamentals again.
And the fundamentals are not so fabulous, at least on developments of the last 24 hours. Firstly, HSBC released its “flash” estimate yesterday of China's February manufacturing PMI and while it saw a gain to 49.7 from 48.8, it's still a number implying contraction. Next, the eurozone released its estimate of the composite (manufacturing and services) PMI for February and it fell to 49.7 from 50.4. One is tempted to respond “well of course, it's Europe”, but economists were expecting a move up to 50.8.
Ratings agency Fitch also had something to say about the ratings on Greece's old bonds and new bonds and definitions of default, but I'm not going to dignify the comments with any air time. Suffice to say there are still those, for some strange reason, who panic when ratings agencies open their mouths.
The biggest “new” issue, remains oil. It's not a new issue of course, just one that was a bit overlooked while all the shenanigans were going on in Europe. Tensions between the US and Iran continue to build, and that is reflected in the ever creeping price of Brent. Last night Brent rose US$1.39 to US$123.05/bbl.
The general feeling is that Iran knows it would never be able to out-gun the US, and the US certainly doesn't want to initiate hostilities (unless we're talking loopy Republican candidates, pardon the tautology). On that basis, while a blockade of the Straits of Hormuz is the current fear, no one really expects Iran to try it on. With negotiations going on over nuclear matters and sanctions, it should remain a Cold War. But then no one can really be sure what Israel might do, and therein lies the real threat to otherwise uneasy peace.
West Texas actually fell US30c last night in the new April delivery contract to US$105.95/bbl, but still Americans see any WTI number above 100 as ominous, and which signals the beginning of demand destruction. The US summer driving season is still a few months off but already there is talk of falling demand for gasoline at this level.
Meanwhile locally, Australia's political parody is hardly the stuff to induce confident investment right now.
Which brings us to gold. Last night gold rose another US$21.00 to US$1777.40/oz as the precious metal awakes from the momentary slumber it was in while the recent Greek tragedy played out. It's not that hard to see why. Rising geopolitical tension? Buy gold. Rising oil price threatening CPI inflation? Buy gold. Easy monetary policy from central banks across the world causing monetary inflation? Buy gold. Precious metal analysts and technicians are starting to get excited once more, with that US$2400/oz number again being bandied about (roughly the today's-dollars equivalent of the 1980 peak).
Base metals were otherwise quiet last night after big moves up on Tuesday night and currencies didn't do much either. The US dollar index is up a bit to 79.21 and the Aussie is down a bit to US$1.0640.
The SPI Overnight fell 12 points or 0.3%
Of course locally, we still have the result season to entertain us. Among another plethora of reports today we'll see Toll Holdings ((TOL)) and Tatts ((TTS)).
And we also have Rudi to entertain us – on Sky Business today at noon and between 7-8pm on Switzer TV.
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