The Match Out: Stocks bounce back (hard!), Gold breaks out & looks great into 2023

A volatile 24 hours across financial markets, this time yesterday the ASX had dropped 109pts and looked average at best while today’s +90pt bounce back has the bulls a little more at ease – the joys of tepid volumes before the big fella drops through the chimney…

• The S&P/ASX 200 added +90 points / +1.29% to close at 7115
• Utilities (+3.83%), Property (+2.78%) & Energy (+2.63%) standouts on the upside.
• Communications (+0.04%) & Financials (+0.47%) lagged the broader advance but still finished in the black.
• A good recovery today following the knee-jerk reaction to yesterday’s move by the BoJ – these sorts of big moves play out when volumes are light. The Christmas rally is perhaps not a dead duck!
• Gold stocks were the real standout– this is a sector we like going into 2023 as the $US loses upside momentum. The 3 we own are Newcrest (ASX: NCM) +6.49%, Evolution (ASX: EVN) +8.10% & St Barbara (ASX: SBM) +7.95%
• Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) +6.64% up after saying its takeover by a Brookfield Consortium remains on track at the due diligence stage.
• Symbio (ASX: SYM) -37.7% snuck through a big downgrade late last night and was whacked today as a result, now expecting FY23 EBITDA to be $26-30m down from $36-39m, a 25% hit at the midpoint of guidance. This stock is down 76% for the year. Not pretty.
• BWX -28.81% fell again today having lost ~50% yesterday – not one to be bottom feeding in!
• Barrenjoey increased their outlook for mining-related costs next year and downgraded Lithium stocks as a result – a sector with a big Capex bill coming next year and beyond. Pilbara (ASX: PLS) is actually now looking interesting again sub $4.
• Dexus (ASX: DXS) +2.93% has sold more assets at reasonable prices, taking the tally to $483m booking trading profits collectively in FY23 with some small carryover into FY24. We recently bought DXS for the Market Matters Income Portfolio believing it to be oversold.
• Iron Ore was higher in Asia up +1.5% ditto for Coal out of Newcastle.
• Gold was flat during our time zone having rallied strongly overnight, trading $US1813/oz at our close.
• Asian stocks were not as positive as our own, Hang Seng up +0.10%, the Nikkei in Japan fell -0.90%, while China lost -0.11%
• US Futures are all up circa 0.45%.

ASX 200 Chart

Broker Moves

• Charter Hall Retail Raised to Buy at Moelis & Company; PT A$4.33
• Growthpoint Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse; PT A$3.56
• City Chic Cut to Speculative Buy at Evans & Partners Pty Ltd

Market Movers 

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