The Overnight Report: BHP, Coles & Woodside

This story features AGL ENERGY LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: AGL

By Chris Weston, Head of Research, Pepperstone

Good morning.

It’s been a frustrating day for the equity bulls, many of whom were looking for an extension of Friday’s gains, and new highs in the NAS100 and S&P500.

Prepositioning ahead of Nvidia’s mid-week earnings announcement and selling in Tesla have impacted.

Yet, despite better US data with US durable goods increasing 9.9%, a lift in the Atlanta Fed Q3 GDP Nowcast model to 2%, and calls from Fed member Mary Daly that it is now time for the Fed to ease- we saw the S&P500 close -0.3% and NAS100 -1%, while we saw small gains in the Dow and Russell 2k.

The intraday tape of the S&P500 highlights a market that never really got going, and the sellers won over from the outset, with the S&P500 cash rolling lower into 5608, before staging a mini rally into 5628.

Any attempt to take the S&P500 back to the flatline was cut back without too much issue, and the buyers lost the impetus, with the index moving sideways into the close.

 Drilling down into the sectors, we see that the sector performance was finely balanced, with 53% of S&P500 companies higher on the day. Energy was the standout sector, backed by consumer staples.

Tech and discretionary plays underperformed, a factor that resulted in the underperformance in the NAS100, with the NAS100 futures testing, but ultimately holding last week’s low of 19525.

Nvidia closed -2.3%, with a few taking a bit of length off the table ahead of Wednesday’s earnings, but again, after the initial sell-off in the first hour, Nvidia traded sideways holding a range of US$127.50 and US$125.50.

Tesla closed -3.2%, where sentiment continues to sour, and after a series of higher lows (on the daily chart) from the 5 Aug low, the share price now lacks trend, and where a downside break of US$210.32 would attract better attention from the short sellers.

The leads set Asia equity up for a calm open, with our call for the ASX200 largely unchanged.

On the day, we’ve seen stability in the recent US Treasury buying, with the sellers starting to get a better say with Treasury yields rising 2bp across the curve.

The US bond market gets close attention this week, not just because of potential month-end rebalancing flow, but we also see the US Treasury Department issuing US$69bn in 2yr paper, US$70bn in 5yr paper, and US$44bn for 7yr paper.

Any further uplift in yield would likely lead to USD shorts covering, and with the market a punchy USD short position, subsequently, it wouldn’t take much to see some taking some off the table.

In Commodity markets, US crude has seen good trader interest, with front-month futures rising through European trade into US$77.60/bbl before closing at US$77.16 (+3.1%) – traders pointing to news that Libya will halt oil exports, a factor which has hit the oil price already seeing better technical buying.

Dalian iron ore futures sit +2.3%, while copper futures are +0.5%. Gold (+0.2%) saw good buying through European trade, pushing into US$2526/oz, before seeing choppy price action into the session close.

On the calendar today:

-Japan PPI Services

-Eurozone ECB Knot/Nagel Speaks

-US Aug CB consumer confidence

-AGL Energy ((AGL)) ex-div 35c

-BHP Group ((BHP)) earnings report

-Contact Energy ((CEN)) ex-div NZ20.61c

-Coopers Energy ((COE)) earnings report

-Coles Group ((COL)) earnings report

-Coronado Global Resources ((CRN)) ex-div 0.54c (100%)

Calix ((CXL)) earnings report

-Deterra Royalties ((DRR)) ex-div 14.40c (100%)

-Electro Optic Systems ((EOS)) earnings report

-HMC Capital ((HMC)) ex-div 6c (70%)

-Woodside Energy ((WDS)) earnings report

FNArena’s Corporate Results Monitor: https://fnarena.com/index.php/reporting_season/

Corporate news in Australia:

-AustralianSuper has been forced to write off more than -$1.1b in equity and loans tied to American online education start-up Pluralsight, in its single worst VC investment

-State Street Global Advisors acquired a 5% stake in Raiz Invest ((RZI)) and partnered to enhance micro-investment options and financial education for Australian investors

-Redflow ((RFX)) has entered voluntary administration and suspended its shares, just after announcing a 5 MWh project with Stanwell Corporation

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.

All overnight and intraday prices, average prices, currency conversions and charts for stock indices, currencies, commodities, bonds, VIX and more available on the FNArena website.  Click here. (Subscribers can access prices on the website.)

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