Daily Market Reports | May 31 2013
By Greg Peel
The Dow closed up 21 points or 0.1% while the S&P gained 0.4% to 1654 and the Nasdaq added 0.7%.
Australia’s private sector capital expenditure rose by 23% in FY11, 27% in FY12, and 0.4% in the September quarter of FY13. It fell 2.1% in December quarter and, on yesterday’s release, fell 4.7% in the March quarter when economists had expected a 0.5% rise. Breaking down the 4.7% fall, spending in the mining sector fell 6.2%, the services sector 2.9% and the manufacturing sector 0.8%.
The March result came as somewhat of a shock, despite talk of the mining boom having already peaked and a litany of mining services companies crying poor in recent weeks. But most important to economists, and the RBA, is capital expenditure intentions. Companies are surveyed to establish what amount of money they intend to spend in FY13 and FY14, to provide an indicator for GDP growth. Companies are not held to their estimates, and interpreting the numbers is a bit of a dark art. Cutting a long story short, capex intentions are higher than the market was expecting.
This also came as a shock, given economists had expected that it would be the intentions number that provided the indicator of the peak in mining. Westpac’s economists calculate net 14% capex growth in mining in FY13, down from last quarter’s estimate of 19%, but 8% growth in FY14, up from 5.5%. Service sector spending is expected to fall 6% in FY13 and grow 11% in FY14, and manufacturing is expected to fall 28% in FY13 and 4% in FY14.
On the release of the actual spending number, the Aussie fell half a cent. Once traders read further down the page to see the increased intentions number, the Aussie bounced back half a cent. Then the April building approvals number came out, showing a 9.1% jump when 4% was expected. The Aussie jumped another half a cent. The Aussie is now 0.2% higher over 24 hours at US$0.9662.
Expectations for a June rate cut from the RBA were already low, and they’re lower now.
The US March quarter GDP result was revised last night and showed growth of 2.4% compared to the first estimate of 2.5%. US pending home sales in April rose 0.3% to be up 10.3% year on year – the highest level in three years. The weekly new jobless claims number showed an unexpected rise.
Wall Street is not entirely sure what to do with such data now. Stock indices initially fell on the GDP news, but weaker GDP and weekly jobs numbers imply the Fed won’t be in a rush to taper QE, so the S&P bounced up strongly. It then went sideways for most of the session before drifting off at the death. An argument can be made that a delayed Fed exit is a good thing, but Wall Street didn’t fall when all this Fed exit talk began. The S&P is on track for its fifth consecutive monthly gain, and that hasn’t happened since 2009. Last night Wall Street was also unfazed that the Japanese stock market fell another 5% yesterday.
Other markets played to the tune of a delayed Fed exit. The US dollar index fell 0.7% to 83.01 and gold jumped US$20.30 to US$1430.80/oz. But yet again, the bond market was having no bar of it. The US ten-year yield closed unchanged at 2.12%.
The weaker greenback helped base metals prices to moderate gains, and West Texas crude rose US50c to US$93.63/bbl, but Brent fell US24c to US$102.19/bbl. Spot iron ore fell US$1.30 to US$111.60/t.
The Australian stock market did not respond well to the capex data yesterday, although the ASX 200 finished off its lows. The SPI Overnight is up 19 points or 0.4%.
We have April private sector credit data out today, the Chinese manufacturing PMI tomorrow, and a raft of domestic March quarter data due next week ahead of Wednesday’s GDP result. The RBA will make its rate decision beforehand, on the Tuesday.
Rudi will appear on BRR Media today at 1pm.
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