The Overnight Report: The Waiting Game

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By Greg Peel

The Dow closed down one point, while the S&P 500 was flat at 1685 and the Nasdaq rose 0.5%.

The RBA governor made a speech yesterday that was quite lengthy, but judging by the market reaction he could have simply stepped up to the podium, said “Yes, we’ll cut” and sat down again. Some paraphrased highlights:

“Inflation data have not shifted and afford more scope for easing”.

“The Aussie fall makes sense and further falls would be no surprise. A weaker currency is unlikely to impact on inflation unless there is a very large depreciation.”

“There has been some portfolio shift from investors into riskier asset classes but not enough to be an impediment to further easing”.

“There’s ample scope for business investment to shift away from mining but it hasn’t much, and nor has housing seen much interest. A stronger non-resources trend looks a while off”.

“It’s understandable but concerning that business confidence has been quite subdued in recent times”.

On all of the above, the Aussie plunged. It is down 1.5 cents at US$0.9066 over 24 hours. Stevens also wasted no time in having a dig at both sides of government and the lack of confidence being fuelled by a lack of election date, policies, and application of those policies. One can feel a hint of “If you all weren’t so useless, we may not need this next rate cut”.

Will Chris Bowen be game enough to “do a Swan” and claim the rate cut to be a result of “sound fiscal management from the government”?

Wall Street remained in waiting mode last night, although not without a bit of volatility. In Dow terms the market was up 70 in the morning and down 40 in the afternoon before closing flat. There were some mixed economic data releases and mixed company profit results to add some interest.

The Case-Shiller house price index for May rose 2.4% for the month and 12.2% over twelve. The Conference Board monthly consumer confidence measure fell to 80.3 from 82.1.

Pfizer (Dow) posted a decent result for a small gain, while Goodyear proved a star with a 9% gain. After a weak start to the earnings season the tech sector has bounced back in fine fashion, and would you believe Facebook is almost back at its IPO price?

On the other hand, a Russian, globally significant potash producer warned of increased competition and a potential 25% drop in potash prices. Thanks for coming. Potash, the Canadian company BHP Billiton ((BHP)) once tried to take over, fell 23%. Fertiliser companies around the globe saw similar share price plunges.

There was also some consternation in the metals market, with LME traders blaming commodity fund nervousness ahead of this week’s Chinese PMI release. Copper and lead fell 2%, while aluminium, nickel and zinc fell 1%.

The US dollar index rose 0.2% to 81.84. Gold slipped slightly to US$1326.60/oz and will be hanging on now to hear what the Fed has to say tonight. The general feeling is that the Fed will say nothing different, with traders expecting the September meeting and accompanying press conference to be the more likely forum for Bernanke to be more specific on tapering timing. The US June quarter GDP is out tonight and may hold a clue for September, with consensus suggesting 1.0% growth.

Spot iron ore fell US80c to US$131.90/t.

The SPI Overnight rose 7 points.

So tonight we wait for the Fed and the US GDP along with the ADP private sector jobs number. After a weak building approvals result yesterday, today’s Australian release will be private sector credit.

On the local stock front, quarterly production reports are due from Aurora Oil & Gas ((AUT)), Discovery Metals ((DML)), Lynas Corp ((LYC)) and Origin Energy ((ORG)), while profit results are expected from Alacer Gold ((AQG)) and Energy Resources of Australia ((ERA)).

Rudi will appear on Sky Business this evening at 5.30pm.
 

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