The Match Out: Stocks bounce from 3-month lows, Pro-Pac Packaging downgrades earnings

Friday’s green on the screen to round out a bit of shine on a pretty dull week for equities. All sectors traded higher into the weekend, no better exemplified than the worst sector for the session, consumer staples, still finishing +0.84%. Tech was the clear standout though, rallying more than double its nearest rival. The rally today wasn’t enough to offset the selling seen over the rest of the week with the ASX200 falling 130pts/-1.81% to post its fourth consecutive weekly fall.

• The ASX 200 finished up +134pts/ +1.93% at 7075 – the index closed on the high of the day following sustained buying throughout.
• The Tech sector was the star (+6.95%) while Healthcare (+3.02%) & Real Estate (+2.97%) were also strong.
• The underperformers were still impressively strong, Consumer staples (+0.84%) the only sector to see a gain of less than 1%.
• Block (SQ2), +14.99%, rallied on the back of Affirm lifting revenue guidance at their 3Q report overnight. The payments space as a whole was buoyed by the news including EML Payments (EML) +7.14%, and Tyro (TYR) +9.8%
• Pro-Pac (PPG), -17.19%, downgraded guidance for the full year by 64% at the profit before tax line. Higher resin, freight, and FX costs as well as material delays and COVID costs weigh. Concerningly it comes just 5 weeks after maintaining guidance, and 7 weeks before the end of the financial year.
• Virtus (VRT), -0.37%, was only marginally lower despite a downgrade of their own. They did talk up the outlook for IVF and will likely see a surge from pent-up demand in FY23.
• Iron Ore was flat in Asia today but that was enough to see miners of the bulk commodity trade higher. Rio was the best of them, up ~2%
• Gold was marginally higher today, up 0.15%/$US1,824 at our close but gold miners were mostly weaker after the precious metal fell ~2% overnight.
• Asian stocks were also strong, Hong Kong up 2.20%, Japan & China both +2.64%
• US Futures are all up, S&P futures pointing to a +0.8% start tonight, and Nasdaq futures are currently over 1% higher

ASX 200

Stocks this week

Sectors this week

Broker Moves

• Amcor GDRs Rated New Neutral at Barrenjoey; PT A$18
• APA Group Rated New Underweight at Barrenjoey; PT A$10.91
• Monash IVF Cut to Hold at Jefferies; PT A$1.25
• Atturra Cut to Hold at Morgans Financial Limited
• Liontown Resources Rated New Neutral at JPMorgan; PT A$1.30
• Carbon Revolution Cut to Speculative Hold at Bell Potter

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