The Monday Report – 22 January 2024

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By Rudi Filapek-Vandyck

Greg Peel will resume writing The Overnight Report from tomorrow onwards.

The pace of global bond market yield adjustment is decelerating and equities, currencies and commodities are treating it as a sign that everything will be fine, with new record highs reached on Wall Street in Friday's session.

Sentiment was assisted by the latest consumer sentiment survey from the University of Michigan revealing American consumers are most comfortable since July. The improvement in sentiment was preceded by unexpectedly strong December retail sales.

The S&P500 closed at a new all-time high and SPI futures on the weekend were indicating a positive follow-through locally as well as the Aussie dollar, gold, energy, and base metals all enjoyed a positive end to last week.

The local index still has some catching up to do with the ASX200 year-to-date down -2.23% (up 3.03% for the running financial year). Materials (mining) and the gold sector are the main laggards in the local market thus far in January.

Three central banks are meeting this week, but none of the Bank of Japan, Bank of Canada or the European Central Bank are expected to upset the applecart (no changes anticipated). Positive sentiment in the US has how shifted simply to the forecast that Fed rate cuts are forthcoming, even if that means later than the March meeting.

Today is a  national holiday in New Zealand. Australia Day is on Friday. In between, quarterly updates continue to populate the local calendar. South32 ((S32)), Coronado Global Resources ((CRN)), Fortescue Metals ((FMG)), Pilbara Minerals ((PLS)) and Mineral Resources ((MIN)) are among those releasing.

On Thursday US-listed ResMed ((RMD)) is ready to unofficially open the local results season. Corporate financial updates will turn into a trickle from the following week onwards. The seasonal tsunami is not expected until mid-February.

In terms of economic releases, NAB's business confidence survey is scheduled for Tuesday, Westpac follows up the next day with its consumer confidence survey while the world glances over January PMI updates. The US will indicate Q4 GDP growth and PCE inflation towards the end of the week.

Our calendar also shows Adairs ((ADH)) is scheduled to update shareholders on Friday, Australia Day. That release probably won't happen (if it does, it's probably a reason to expect the worst).

The Australian share market over the past thirty days…

For more detail go to FNArena's Australian Broker Call Report, which is updated each morning, Mon-Fri.

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