- ASX to drop at the open
- Nvidia loses US$128bn on mkt cap on Friday
- Gold keeps giving, China… not so much
The ASX is poised for a fall on Monday after an accelerating Wall Street got the death wobbles on Friday in New York.
On Monday At 8am AEDT, the ASX200 index futures contract was pointing down by +0.6%. The ASX closed yesterday at 7,763.7, and could now test the 7769.1 high set earlier on intraday Monday.
US stocks did sound a general retreat on Friday, ending a bubbly volatile week with a fullstop – or at least a bit of profit taking on Nvidia’s cray-cray run of gains YTD.
The S&P500 lost 0.65% to 5,123.69.
The Nasdaq Composite shed 1.15% to end at 16,085.11.
The softer-hearted Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 69 points, or 0.17%, to end at 38,722.69.
All three major US indices took on water in choppy conditions last week – the worst for the 30-stock Dow since October.
The S&P500 lost 0.25%, the Dow and tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.95% and 1.2%, respectively.
Nvidia running out of puff, defined Friday in New York, as the AI darling gave up circa 5% to log its worst session in almost 10 months.
But hey – Nvidia still finished up more than 6% for the week, so bad is relative and in NVDA’s case it’s incestuous. It’s added US$1 trillion in market cap this year (2024) so…
Former glory Mega tech, Apple, finally rose in Friday trading finding 1% and thus ending its longest losing streak (seven sessions) since January ’22.
But like an anti-NVDA – APPL was still down 5% on the week, making it the worst performer in the 30-stock Dow.
US February jobs data came in at a higher-than-expected increase of 275k jobs compared to the estimated 189k. Good for the economy, bad for rate cuts.
Oil prices fell last week as demand out of China and ample global supply butted heads.
The West Texas Intermediate contract for April settled down 1.2%.
With the sustainability of higher prices sans significant Chinese demand recovery, the US crude and the global benchmark copped losses of 2.5% and 1.8%, respectively.
Among the US sectors, Real Estate was the best performer, and Tech was the worst.
Around the ‘burbs – Asian Pacific markets on Friday were all higher, Tokyo’s Nikkei added 0.25%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.75% and China’s Shanghai Composite added 0.6%.
China NPC meeting in Beijing ends today sans any major stimmy.
European markets closed mixed. London’s FTSE fell 0.45% while Paris closed 0.15% the better.
The ASX on Monday…
To end last week, the Australian benchmark ASX200 closed 1.1% higher, above and beyond 7,800 points for the very first time.
That’ll be a record.
The XJO called it a day on 7,847.0, ahead 1.9% for the week.
Coming into sharper focus this week is a possible rate change here at home.
Local markets now anticipate a 93% probability of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) reducing the cash rate in August, with full pricing for a move in September, projecting two quarter-point cuts for the year.
Worth noting that the gold spot took off again on Friday.
Gold is now up +5.6% year-to-date with shiny new all-time highs abounding.
Local goldies have been strong beneficiaries and a positive contrast to its metallic brethren.
Iron ore has been a wobbler, but also worth watching as the AUD which has risen since Beijing announced a bit of extra infrastructure spend – not heaps, mind you – at the National Party Conference (NPC) which closes today at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square.
ASX Ex-dividends on Monday
Adairs (ASX:ADH) is paying 5 cents fully franked
Consolidated Operations Group (ASX:COG) is paying 4 cents fully franked
Coronado Global Resources (ASX:CRN) is paying 0.5348 cents fully franked
CSL (ASX:CSL) is paying 182.5713 cents unfranked
Dusk Group (ASX:DSK) is paying 2.5 cents fully franked
Generation Development Group (ASX:GDG) is paying 1 cent 50 per cent franked
Joyce Corporation (ASX:JYC) is paying 11 cents fully franked
Perpetual (ASX:PPT) is paying 4 cents fully franked
Ramsay Health Care (ASX:RHC) is paying 40 cents fully franked
Seven Group Holdings (ASX:SVW) is paying 23 cents fully franked
Turners Automotive Group (ASX:TRA) is paying 5.6286 cents 85 per cent franked
In other markets …
Gold price rose by +0.06% to US$2,179.40 an ounce.
Oil prices traded lower, both Brent and WTI down 1.4%.
The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield is flat to 4.09%.
Iron ore futures are down 0.84% to US$117.05 a tonne.
One Australian dollar at 8.30am was buying 66.26 US cents.
The AUD has been lifting this week since the Chinese government announced extra infrastructure spending at the National Party Conference earlier this week.
Bitcoin meanwhile was up another +1.3% in the last 24 hours to US$67,341.
3 ASX small caps to watch today
CDR says an EM survey has identified “multiple prospective horizons” for drill testing at its Karloning REE Project. There’s some 58km of Loupe EM data collected across the Karloning clay-hosted REE Project resulting in drill targets being generated over CDR’s increased landholding in the highly prospective WA Wheatbelt.
On Friday we discovered FMG will spent up to $14m over six years to get a 75% JV interest in Magmatic’s Myall project in NSW. For Magmatic that’s just grand – as is FMG’s decision to subscribe for 75.9 million shares to claim a 19.9% stake in the junior. Another $3.71m in the coffers for MAG at 4.884c a share — a 10% premium to its 30 day VWAP at the end of January. MAG shares gained hard late Friday, but there’s still a buzz about it on Monday.
Is dropping financial results on Monday, the PNG focused energy minnow will be looking to advance the Central Lime Project and Orokolo Bay Industrial Sands Project to Final Investment Decision, as well as get cracking on its portfolio of renewable energy opportunities in PNG. MRL snagged ex-OkTedi, Oil Search (ASX:OSH) and current Santos (ASX:STO) independent non-executive director to oversee government and community relations across Mayur’s PNG portfolio.