ASX 200 futures flat, S&P 500 closes above 5,000 for first time + Seek, JB Hi-Fi results

Get up to date on overnight market activity and the big events for the day.
The Morning Wrap

Livewire Markets

ASX 200 futures are trading flat as of 8:20 am AEDT.


Source: Market Index
Source: Market Index

S&P 500 SESSION CHART

S&P 500 higher and finished at best levels (Source: TradingView)
S&P 500 higher and finished at best levels (Source: TradingView)

ASX TODAY

  • ASX 200 futures point towards another flattish open
  • Stocks due to report on Monday include: Audinate, Aurizon, Beach Energy, Breville, Car Group, Challenger and JB Hi-Fi
  • Breville consensus for 1H24 earnings include $944m revenue and $85.5m NPAT
  • JBH consensus for 1H24 earnings include $5.15bn revenue and $246.3m NPAT
  • Seek consensus for 1H24 earnings include $615m revenue and $121.5m NPAT (cont ops)
  • Boral smashed earnings expectations last Friday, analysts from Jarden and CSLA have mixed ratings but upgrade the share price to $5.80 and $6.40 respectively
  • Liontown Resources rallied 10.4% last Friday after minimum bid requirements expired in regards to Rinehart's acquisition of a 19.9% stake (The Australian)
  • Myer looking to sell Sass & Bide, Marcs and David Lawrence (AFR)
  • Carlyle, Hibiscus Petroleum and Jadestone Energy are the final contenders to acquire Woodside’s Macedon oil and gas assets, valued at around $500m (The Australian)

MARKETS

  • S&P 500 higher, finished at best levels and closed above the 5000 for the first time in history
  • S&P 500 and Nasdaq both higher last week, up for a 14th week in the past 15
  • Russell 2000 outperformed but remains a big year-to-date laggard
  • Oil staging a comeback after logging a five-day win streak, up 5.9%
  • Bullish focus points for the week – Resilient US growth backdrop with Atlanta Fed GDPNow estimate for 1Q24 at 3.4%, AI proliferation, restructuring and cost cutting announcements attracting a positive view for margins and renewed China bounce
  • Bearish focus points for the week – Yields continue to grind higher, Fedspeak continues to tilt towards hawkish, market breadth concerns, regional banks under pressure and China deflation
  • S&P 500's forward PE ratio looking lofty, raising doubts over the market rally (Reuters)
  • Historical trends suggest S&P could see double-digit returns (FT)
  • Global buybacks rebounding amid improving profit growth (Bloomberg)
  • Record cash piles at big tech firms paves way for capital return (Bloomberg)

EARNINGS

S&P 500 Q4 EPS growth currently sits at 2.9% compared to the 1.5% expected at the beginning of earnings season. Here are some aggregated numbers for the 67% of S&P 500 companies that have reported:

  • 75% have beaten consensus EPS expectations, below the five-year average of 77%
  • 65% have beaten consensus revenue expectations, below the five-year average of 68%
  • Earnings beats are 3.8% above expectations, below the five-year average of 8.5%
  • Revenue beats are 1.2% above expectations, below the five-year average of 2.0%

CENTRAL BANKS

  • Fed still set to cut rates this year despite strong labor market, immigration-led GDP tailwind (FT)
  • ECB's Kazaks says hopes for cuts at one of the next two meetings might be too aggressive (Bloomberg)
  • ECB's Villeroy says will likely lower interest rates in 2024 as the pace of price increases eases toward 2% by next year (Bloomberg)
  • BoE's Haskel wants more evidence of waning inflation before voting for a cut (Reuters)
  • RBA Governor Bullock not ruling out more hikes, but leaves door open to cut (Reuters)

GEOPOLITICS

  • Biden eyes ban on Chinese smart cars, citing data security fears (Bloomberg)
  • Biden seeks to crack down on Iranian crude without disrupting global markets (Bloomberg)
  • US lawmakers urge commerce department to add Tiktok owner ByteDance to an export control list (Reuters)

CHINA

  • China's real estate crisis starts to ripple across the world (Bloomberg)
  • China equity flows turn positive but likely driven by state-backed offshore arms (FT)
  • China unleashes loan flood to rescue sputtering economy, January sees record high borrowing (Reuters)
  • PBOC says it will keep policy support flexible and precise (Reuters)


US-listed sector ETFs (Source: Market Index)
US-listed sector ETFs (Source: Market Index)

Sectors to Watch

The overnight session was rather uneventful in terms of its impact on the ASX.

Buy now, pay later: The BNPL sector has been on a tear in recent months but the US-listed Affirm hit a wall last Friday. The company's quarterly reported topped revenue and earnings expectations though transaction costs were higher-than-expected. Analysts were cautious on the guidance (which was also a beat). The stock finished the session down 10.9%. Block also down 2.8%. Could this see some negative flow for names like Zip (ASX: ZIP)  and Humm (ASX: HUM)?

Tech: Tech was the best performing sector on Wall Street thanks to gains from Nvidia (+3.6%), Amazon (+2.7%) and Alphabet (+2.0%). Local names are starting to push out, including:

  • Wisetech (ASX: WTC)  – Near 6-month high
  • Altium (ASX: ALU– Near all-time highs
  • Life360 (ASX: 360– Near 3-month high

Resources: Pretty heavy session for resource-related ETFs, notably Uranium (-0.77%), Gold Miners (-1.2%) and Copper Miners (-1.2%). SPDR Energy and Materials also down -1.5% and -0.1% respectively.

Why We're Far From a Bubble

"At this point, valuations at the top are no where near as frothy as they were at the height of the Dot Com Bubble. The 5 largest stocks traded at 43x Fwd PE in March ‘00, a 59% premium to the Mag 7’s current multiple of 27x," says Goldman Sachs.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Carson Investment Group has charted the average annual S&P 500 return based on The Chinese Zodiac Signs. Dragons appear to have relatively average returns but higher 83.3% of the time! I'll try run the numbers for the ASX today.

Source: Carson Investment Group
Source: Carson Investment Group

KEY EVENTS

ASX corporate actions occurring today:

  • Trading ex-div: Bailador Technology Investments (BTI) – $0.035
  • Dividends paid: None
  • Listing: None

Economic calendar (AEDT):

No major economic announcements. 

This Morning Wrap was written by Kerry Sun. 

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Livewire and Market Index's pre-opening bell news and analysis wrap. Available weekday mornings and written by Kerry Sun.

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