Evening Wrap: ASX 200 nosedives, new housing loans fall in July, more lockdowns in China

The S&P/ASX 200 closed 141 points lower, down -2.02%.

The local sharemarket has its worst day since 30 June with BHP contributing roughly a third of today's decline, Aussie new loan commitments for housing continues to deflate and Asian manufacturing slumps.

Let's dive in.

ASX 200, All Ords and All Tech intraday overview

Markets

• 10 out of 11 sectors declined

• Staples was the only green sector, up almost 1%

• Materials underperformed after BHP shares went ex-dividend

• Defensive and yield oriented sectors like utilities and real estate also underperformed

• 81% of the top 200 companies declined

Stocks

Announcements:

• Fisher & Paykel (ASX: FPH) +0.9% entered into a purchase agreement with Overseas Investment Office to acquire a 105 hectare site in Karaka, Auckland for $275m 

• Argosy Minerals (ASX: AGY) -6.0% said the development of the Rincon Lithium Project in Argentina is 95% complete. The 2,000 tpa lithium carbonate operation is expected to achieve first production next month 

Sectors:

• Gold miners including Perseus (ASX: PRU), Evolution (ASX: EVN) and Ramelius (ASX: RMS) fell more than -6% as spot prices are on a five-day skid, down to around US$1,700

Other things of interest:

• Yancoal (ASX: YAL) +4.8% was the top performing All Ords company on Thursday. The coal miner will go ex-dividend next Monday, 5 September for a 52.7 cent dividend

  • At a close of $6.16, this represents a yield of 8.55%

• A2 Milk (ASX: A2M) +2.7% shares are up ~16 % in the last four sessions. The company posted a 43% jump in FY22 profits last week and expects continued earnings growth in FY23

• BHP (ASX: BHP) -7.6% shares went ex-dividend. A final dividend of $2.47 will be paid out on Thursday, 22 September

  • Excluding the dividend, BHP shares fell -1.25%

• Sandfire Resources (ASX: SFR) -12.1% shares still suffering from a weak FY22 result on Tuesday and falling copper prices

  • Sandfire's MATSA acquisition was initially forecast to produce copper at C1 costs of US$0.40 to US$0.50/lb in FY22. The costs are now US$1.81/lb.

• Pointsbet (ASX: PBH) -15.9% shares are now down -25% in the last two sessions. The company posted its FY22 results on Wednesday, where losses accelerated 43% to -$267.7m

Economy

• Australian new borrow-accepted loan commitments for housing fell -8.5% month-on-month in July

  • Value of new loans fell -8.5% to $28.4bn after a fall of -4.4% in June

  • Loans peaked in January at $33.2bn

  • Owner-occupier housing fell -7.0% to $19.1bn but 39.6% higher than pre-pandemic levels seen in February 2020

  • Investor housing fell -11.2% to $9.3bn but 78.4% higher than pre-pandemic levels

• China Caixin Manufacturing PMI fell to 49.5 in August from 50.4 in July

  • Consensus expected a reading of 50.2

  • The Caixin survey differs slightly from Wednesday’s NBS PMI. It has a smaller sample size that consists mainly of small, private companies

  • “The economy is still slowly recovering from a widespread outbreak of Covid-19 in the first half of the year. Yet, local flare-ups and the punishing heat wave have disrupted the trend and created new downward pressures, posing a threat to the recovery,” said Wang Zhe, Senior Economist at Caixin 

• Taiwan manufacturing PMIs fell to 42.7 in July from 44.6 in June

  • Lowest reading since May 2020

Commodities 

• Iron ore futures on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange fell -0.2%

  • “After stabilising amid tentative optimism in August, Chinese steel prices are likely to weaken again in September,” Mysteel’s chief analyst predicted in his monthly outlook

  • Increasing supply is expected to become a major pressure on steel prices

• Newcastle coal futures rose 2.5% to US$425 a tonne

• Uranium futures rose 4% to US$52.4 a tonne, according to fuel brokers UxC 

Scans

Latest news

Post market charts

Indexes:

S&P/ASX 200: That’s a pretty ugly red candle that’s undercut the 50-day moving average and the recent low we’ve been trying to hold. On a side note, after unifying its London-listed shares, BHP’s weighing of the ASX 200 increased from ~6% to ~10%. So realistically, around a third of today’s fall is from BHP alone.

Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index

S&P/ASX 200 Energy: Oil prices demonstrated a change in character after breaking above the downward channel and key moving averages in late August. But then it did a complete U-turn with back-to-back declines of around -5%.

Brent crude oil chart (Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index)

ASX 200 Staples (+1.03%) and Healthcare (-0.22%) were notable outperformers of the broader market. When we talk about these three sectors, it’s essentially three companies: Woolworths (ASX: WOW), Coles (ASX: COL) and CSL (ASX: CSL).

ASX 200 Real Estate (-2.2%) and Utilities (-3.01%): These two rate-sensitive and yield oriented sectors were smashed today. Even though their defensive peers (the three above) outperformed.

Stocks

Pretty ugly day for most stocks with the ASX 200 in the deep red, US markets on a four-day skid and US futures currently red (Nasdaq futs -1.2% and S&P 500 futs -0.7%).

There's the odd stock that's holding up and forming a base like Myer (ASX: MYR), Neuren Pharmaceuticals (ASX: NEU), Australian Vanadium (ASX: AVL) and Calix (ASX: CXL).

Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index

But that's just the odd stock, more broadly speaking, stocks are under pressure and starting to roll over after the July to mid August rally. Will we see some support or a bounce, or does the seasonally challenging September put a re-test of June lows on the cards?

Food for thought

China still lockin' down: The southwestern city of Chengdu, with a population of approximately 21m, will enter lockdown tonight and begin mass testing from Thursday to Sunday

G7 wants cheap oil: Group of seven finance ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US will hold talks to discuss purchasing Russian oil at capped prices, according to Bloomberg

Seasonality: Just another reminder that September is not a nice month for stocks

Source: Sentiment Trader