While much ado is made of the science that goes into fund manager research, real assessment puts comparable weight on the art as well according to investment leaders.
While financials and materials dominated trades leading into 2024, the popularity of other sectors like healthcare and information technology followed generational, and even demographic, lines.
Australian sectors push higher, as the RBA pauses on interest rate hikes.
The S&P/ASX 200 finished up +0.5%, and the All Ordinaries rose +0.5% as all sectors finished in the green following the RBA’s decision to keep rates on pause for the second consecutive month. Interest rate sensitive Information Technology finished highest up +1.14% for the day, driven by WiseTech shares up +0.9%, Xero up +1.4% and NEXTDC up +2.4%. Late in trading, the real estate sector also rebounded with Stockland up +1% and Mirvac up +0.9%. Consumer-related stocks also experienced notable demand with JB Hi-Fi’s stock up +1.9%, Woolworths up +1.2%, and Metcash up +1.1%, with supermarkets consolidating losses from yesterday.
TPG, Credit Corp, Patriot Battery Metals & money managers
TPG shares experienced an impressive +11.6% surge off the back of negotiations for a multibillion-dollar sale and leaseback of its non-mobile fibre assets with Vocus, a company backed by Macquarie. In other news, Credit Corp faced a significant decline of -12.6% after reporting a -5% drop in net profit for the full year. Whilst Patriot Battery Metals saw a notable increase of +10.6% in its shares following the announcement of a $120 million share placement with Albemarle, a chemicals giant listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Money managers also finished on a positive note with Perpetual up +2%, Magellan Financial up +2%, and Pinnacle Investment up +1.3%.
The surging seven & overnight earnings updates
The Nasdaq 100 (with 50% of its holdings exposed to the information technology sector) hashad a substantial increase in its share price over the last 5 months and has surged +44% in 2023 – primarily driven by artificial intelligence. Interestingly, year to date approximately 75% of the overall gains in the S&P500 can be attributed to just seven companies, including NVIDIA +178%, Meta +131%, Tesla +96%, Amazon +51%, Apple +43%, Microsoft +38%, and Alphabet +34%. In other earnings news overnight, Caterpillar gained +8.9% following a positive second-quarter profit report but warned about a potential decline in sales and margins for the current quarter. Uber faced a setback as it dropped by -5.7% due to missing second-quarter revenue expectations in the ride-hailing industry, and Pfizer experienced fluctuating trading and a slight decrease in stock value. Pfizer stated quarterly revenue failed to meet Wall Street expectations, primarily impacted by declining sales of its COVID-19 products.
