Morning Bell 28 July

Wall Street closed higher with the S&P500 posting its 5th straight record close as investors digested a strong start to earnings season in the US and trade developments in the form of a landmark trade agreement with Japan. The S&P500 rose 0.4% on Friday to post its 14th record close of the year, the Nasdaq added 0.24% and the Dow Jones ended the day up 0.47%. Both Alphabet and Verizon rallied last week on the back of better-than-expected earnings results with rallies of 4% and 5% respectively over the last trading week.

In Europe on Friday markets closed mostly lower following Trump’s remarks saying there is a ’50-50’ chance of a deal being done with the EU before his self-imposed August 1 deadline. The STOXX 600 fell 0.2%, Germany’s DAX lost 0.3%, the French CAC added 0.2% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 ended the day down 0.2%.

Across the APAC region on Friday markets closed mostly lower as investors assessed recent trade developments. Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.88%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.09%, India’s Nifty 50 declined 0.9% and South Korea’s Kospi Index bucked the trend to close 0.18% higher.

Locally on Friday the ASX200 posted a 0.5% loss on Friday as a sharp sell-off in materials, financials and healthcare stocks offset strength among energy and tech stocks. For the week, Australia’s key index lost 1.03%.

The banks extended their sell-off on Friday as investors continued profit taking from the sector that ran the hottest over the last financial year. CBA (ASX:CBA) fell over 5% over the last trading week while NAB (ASX:NAB)declined over 4%, Westpac (ASX:WBC) fell over 3% and ANZ (ASX:ANZ) lost 1%.

Regal Partners (ASX:RPL) shares jumped over 9% on Friday after the specialist alternative investment manager reported a 7% rise in funds under management for the June quarter with net inflows at around $600m for the quarter.

 What to watch today:

• On the commodities front this morning oil is trading 1.45% lower at US$65.07/barrel, gold is down 0.93% at US$3336.98/ounce and iron ore is down 0.03% at US$98.55/tonne.
• The Aussie dollar has weakened against the greenback to buy 65.75 US cents, 97.09 Japanese Yen, 48.79 British Pence and 1 New Zealand dollar and 9 cents.
• Ahead of Monday’s trading session the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX will open the day down just 0.06%.

 Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has downgraded the rating on Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC) from a buy to a hold and have reduced the 12-month price target on the coal miner from $7.10 to $6.90 following the release of Q4 results out of the company. FY25 guidance was met, Group production and sales met the upper half of the guidance range and unaudited unit costs, and capex were below guidance. The company increased debt though following the first payment for the BMA acquisition and Narrabri undertook an 8-week longwall maintenance period during FY25 which is expected to be overcome in FY26. The move to a hold rating is due to recent share price appreciation.
• And Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on Gentrack (ASX:GTK) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 67-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $9.72 to the range of $7.90 to $8.30 according to standard principles of technical analysis.