Australian Shares

Angus Nicholson, IG The turnaround mid-session in the S&P 500 overnight seems to have coincided with some stabilisation in markets globally.

by Chris Becker The volatility from the Mining GFC is getting worse – or better depending on your point of view.

Readers will recall that MB has kept close tabs on Trevor Sykes at the AFR over the past six months.

by Angus Nicholson, IG The wheels look like they are coming off in the Asian session today.

It’s well past time of course but the AFR is still banging the ruptured yield drum: For investors chasing yield the outlook for 2016 is not good.

What was once the worlds most diversified and probably robust miner, BHP has now been hit by $300 to $400 million in writedowns in two of its four “core” (and only remaining) outputs – coal and oil.

by Chris Becker US markets reopened after the long weekend and followed European markets higher before finishing exactly where they started.

Citi offers some interesting long cycle material today: During the Cold War, and for the most part after it ended, the United States served as the direct and indirect guarantor of stability around the globe.

by Angus Nicholson, IG After going through a battering so far in 2016, Asian markets looked determined to hold onto their early morning performances despite the Chinese data releases missing market expectations on every line.

by Chris Becker With US markets closed for the long weekend and no major economic events on the calendar it was hoped that the Mining GFC would have a reprieve, or at least a pause and more or less that’s what we got overnight.

by Angus Nicholson, IG Selling has continued into the Asia session with both the ASX and the Nikkei sitting near-technical-bear-market declines of 20% from their recent highs.

First Dick Smiths, now Masters?

News just in: Retail giant Woolworths has announced it will exit its unprofitable Masters hardware business through selling it or by winding it up.

by Chris Becker I commented on Fridays morning report that we are experiencing the calm before the storm, but I thought this “eye” would be a touch wider, as volatility sharply returned to risk markets over the weekend.

Asian markets have struggled to hold their strong open today.

On the back of BHP’s writedown of US shale oil interest, which was mainly priced in to the market with the London listing lifting 6% overnight on the news, alongside a short covering rally in risk, big iron ore lifted straight into the open, but has come back a bit before the lunchbreak.

From fastFT, with news just in that BHP Billiton is making a $7.2billion writedown on its US shale assets: An impairment charge by the Anglo-Australian miner, a big player in US onshore oil and gas, had been expected but the amount makes it the largest announced by BHP during the mining downturn.

The stabilisation seen in markets yesterday has aggressively dissipated after US markets failed to hold early gains overnight.

From David Scutt the opening bell saw a big selloff and a new 2.5 year low: I love the smell of short selling in the morning!

by Chris Becker I asked yesterday “Is it over? Can we come out from under our desks?” And it appeared that way to many, with a solid Asian session (sans Chinese markets) as correlated bounces appeared over all risk assets.

Generally I am one to follow the money flow and ride the trend, but the market internals in the S&P 500 and other developed markets had become so oversold that the risk to reward trade off had become quite compelling.

by Chris Becker Is it over?

by Evan Lucas, IG The third day of ‘stable’ fixes for the CNY – 6.5628 is virtually unchanged from Monday and Friday’s fixing rate and looks to have, on the currency side at least, halted the hugely oversold positioning building in the markets.