Evening Wrap: ASX 200 fades from session highs ahead of Microsoft and Alphabet earnings

The S&P/ASX 200 closed 19 points higher, up 0.28%.

The local sharemarket struggles to close towards session highs for a second day in a row, real estate stocks headline gains, resources sell off, Australian consumer confidence hits a two month low and a massive lineup of heavyweight US companies reporting tonight.

Let's dive in.

Markets

The ASX 200 briefly rallied 0.77% to a one month high but failed to hold onto gains. Despite the two day winning streak, the market continues to see some selling pressure towards session highs.

Brace yourself for a big overnight session on Wall Street with names like General Electric, Coca Cola and UPS reporting before market open as well as Microsoft, Alphabet and Visa reporting after close. Will these results be better-than-feared or will we wake up to a 'US stocks sell off on xyz earnings' headline?

• 10 out of 11 sectors higher

• Real Estate led to the upside, aided by positive September updates from Centuria

  • Centuria on industrial real estate: "Record low national industrial vacancy, coupled with limited supply of industrial space, continues to create a divergence between supply and demand resulting in accelerated industrial market rental growth across the country."

• Telcos, Discretionary, Healthcare and Financials also outperformed the index

• Materials and Energy led to the downside as a stronger US dollar a weaker outlook for Chinese demand weighed. Eurozone and US flash PMIs also showed significant weakness across services and manufacturing overnight

• 65% of the top 200 advanced

Economy

• Australia consumer confidence fell -1.3% last week to 81.1

  • "... its fourth decline in a row and dipping to its lowest since early August," ANZ Head of Australian Economics, David Plank said

  • "Inflation expectations were up 0.1 percentage points to 6.1 per cent, its highest since late March when petrol prices first peaked. Cost of living pressures are most likely a key reason for the renewed weakness.”

  • ‘Time to buy a major household item’ fell -0.7%, down -11% in the past three weeks 

Commodities

The commodity market mostly eased during market hours, with most base metals and energy down less than -1% weighed by President Xi's third term in power.

• Iron ore futures on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange fell -1.4%

Latest news

Post market brief

The ASX 200 remains in a rangebound state, which isn't all that bad taking into consideration all the mayhem that's going on in Asia (Xi's power grab, Hang Seng Index freefalling to 2009 levels and wild swings for the Japanese Yen).

As noted in Tuesday's Morning Wrap, over 30% of the S&P 500's market capitalisation is due to report this week. So brace yourself for some volatile moves, surprises and upsets.

Index charts

S&P/ASX 200: Remains rangebound between the ~6,820 high and ~6,635 low.

XJO chart (Source: TradingView)

S&P/ASX 200 Discretionary: Pushing a one month high into the 50-day (green) and previous lows. Does it kick on or do we see some selling at these levels?

XDJ chart (Source: TradingView)

Major announcements

• Cettire (ASX: CTT) +12.9% shares rallied on no news but got a speeding ticket from the ASX. Perhaps this is a short-covering driven rally

• Credit Corp (ASX: CCP) +7.9% notes “early signs that unsecured indebtedness may be starting to re-build”. FY23 profit and net lending guidance reaffirmed

• Estia Health (ASX: EHE) +5.3% executed a binding agreement to acquire four residential aged care homes from Premier Health Care Group 

• Weebit Nano (ASX: WBT) +4.3% presented at the Goldman Sachs Emerging Tech Conference. The company expects ReRam qualification to be completed in 1Q23 

• Leo Lithium (ASX: LLL) +4.2% posted its September quarterly report. The construction of the Goulamina Lithium project is ‘ramping up on budget and schedule’

• Centuria Industrial (ASX: CIP) +2.9% noted ‘significant tenant demand’ in 1Q23, securing 49,209 sqm of lease terms representing 99.6% portfolio occupancy

• Centuria Office (ASX: COF) +1.1% said it achieved ‘strong leasing outcomes’ in 1Q23 with 94.9% portfolio occupancy and reaffirmed FY23 guidance 

• SG Fleet (ASX: SGF) -0.35% said at its AGM that “our order pipeline in Australia has lengthened further, by about 10% on June 2022 and by 50% on the same time last year. The pipeline is about 6-times that seen pre-covid.” 

• Pilbara Minerals (ASX: PLS) -0.4% posted its September quarterly. Production rose 16% QoQ to 147,105 tonnes of spodumene and cash balance jumped to $1.375bn

• PointsBet (ASX: PBH) -1.5% burned through another -$60.7m cash in 1Q23. Betting turnover rose 18% to $1.16bn compared to last year and net wins rose 13% to $79m

• Ampol (ASX: ALD) -12.6% posted 147% EBIT growth to $1bn for the full year to 30 September 2022. The company noted refining margins benefiting from the low Aussie dollar

• Reliance Worldwide (ASX: RWC) -13.4% posted 16% EBITDA growth for the September quarter to US$76.8m. The company noted a ‘contraction in volumes in the first quarter’ for its Americas business 

Broker updates

Scans