Morning Wrap: ASX 200 to rise, S&P 500 clocks 8th straight day of gains, Ansell and Hub24 to headline earnings

The ASX 200 is expected to start on the front foot after Wall Street closed at near-session highs. Last night marked eight straight days of gains for the S&P 500, pretty remarkable given what happened just two weeks ago. On the local front, a whole slew of companies report today - from Ansell to Monadelphous, Hub24 to Reliance Worldwide, Sims to Judo Bank. Truly, the motley crew of the ASX.

Let's dive in.

S&P 500 SESSION CHART

A spike in buying at the end of the day tops off a strong performance for the S&P 500. (Source: TradingView)

OVERNIGHT MARKETS

• US equities finished higher in fairly uneventful Monday trading, ending near best levels.

  • S&P 500 and Nasdaq both logged their eighth consecutive daily gain. S&P is now only around 1% below its 16-Jul record high.

• Treasuries were mixed with the curve flattening.

• Dollar index was down 0.6% with yen strength the story in currencies.

• Gold finished up 0.1%, Bitcoin futures were down 1.6%, and WTI crude settled down 2.5%

MARKETS

• Investor confidence makes a swift return, just two weeks after spike in bearish fears (FT)

• SEC charges Carl Icahn and his company Icahn Enterprises with hiding billions in loans (CNBC)

• Goldman Sachs strategists expect momentum, corporate buybacks to spark rally over next four weeks (Bloomberg)

• Options traders position for further dollar losses with Powell expected to reinforce case for cuts (Bloomberg)

• Beijing restricts trading data as global funds have pulled $12B from mainland Chinese equities since June (FT)

STOCKS

• GM lays off more than 1,000 software and service division employees in effort to streamline unit (CNBC)

• Several UAW officials are preparing to file grievances against Stellantis, may strike (Reuters)

• Recession mentions on company earnings calls falls to near 3-year low (Yahoo Finance)

• Disney names Almin Karamehmedovic as president of ABC News (Reuters)

• Circle-K owner Couche-Tard approaches Japanese parent of 7-Eleven about a potential takeover (Nikkei)

• AMD to purchase AI infrastructure company ZT systems for nearly $5B (FT)

ECONOMY

• Latest Reuters poll shows Fed predicted to deliver three quarter-point rate cuts this year (Reuters)

• NY Fed survey shows highest share of people who think they'll be unemployed in next four months since at least 2014 (Bloomberg)

POLITICS & GEOPOLITICS

• Germany exported more goods to Poland than China in 1H 2024 amid heightened risks of reliance on China (Bloomberg)

• Netanyahu accepts bridging proposal that would close remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas on cease-fire (NY Times)

• Hamas claims responsibility for Sunday's bomb blast in Tel Aviv (Reuters)

• Secretary Blinken warns Hamas and Israel of final chance to end war in Gaza (Reuters)

ASX TODAY

• These companies are reporting today: Ansell (ASX: ANN); Baby Bunting (ASX: BBN); Deterra Royalties (ASX: DRR); Dexus (ASX: DXS); ARB (ASX: ARB; Hub24 (ASX: HUB); Judo Bank (ASX: JDO); Reliance Worldwide (ASX: RWC); Sims (ASX: SGM); Monadelphous (ASX: MND)

BROKER MOVES

• IRESS downgraded to neutral from overweight at JPMorgan, target cut from $10.20 to $10

• Nufarm downgraded to sell from neutral at Citi, target cut from $4.80 to $3.65

• oOh! Media downgraded to neutral from outperform at Macquarie, target cut from $2.28 to $1.56

• a2 Milk upgraded to hold from underperform at CLSA, target decreased from $5.90 to $5.60

• Bluescope Steel upgraded to outperform from sector perform at RBC Capital Markets, target increased from $23 to $24.50

Stocks trading ex-dividend: 

• Tue 20 Aug: Computershare (CPU) – $0.42, Magellan Financial (MFG) – $0.357

• Wed 21 Aug: AMP (AMP) – $0.02, Commonwealth Bank (CBA) – $2.50

• Thu 22 Aug: JB Hi-Fi (JBH) – $1.83

• Fri 23 Aug: Amotiv (AOV) – $0.22

Other ASX corporate actions today: 

• Dividends paid: None

• Listing: None  

• Earnings (large cap): 

• AGMs: None

Economic Calendar:

• 11:30am: RBA's August Meeting Minutes

• 10:30pm: Canada CPI

This Wrap was written by Hans Lee. Kerry Sun is off today.