S&P 500 gives back early strength, Block tumbles on short report, ASX to fall

The S&P 500 closes well-below session highs, the Nasdaq and tech stocks continue to outperform, gold is close to US$2,000 again, Accenture and Walmart announce further layoffs, Block is hit by a Hindenburg Research report accusing it of misleading investors with 'inflated metrics' and central banks including the Bank of England, Swiss National Bank and Norway hike despite the banking turmoil.

Let's dive in.

S&P 500 SESSION CHART

MARKETS

• S&P 500 closes marginally higher, down from session highs of 1.82%
• No specific factor behind the rally other than a post Fed bounce and continued strength among mega cap tech stocks
• Janet Yellen said the government has taken strong actions to ensure American deposits are safe and prepared for additional steps if warranted
• Gold rallies close to US$2,000 and back up to March 2022 levels
• Investors cautious on US stocks, even though Fed hikes may soon end (Reuters)
• OPEC+ likely to stick to its guns despite price slump (Reuters)

STOCKS

• Accenture (+7.3%) to cut 2.5% of its workforce or 19,000 employees (Bloomberg)
• Meta (+2.2%) rallied after TikTok CEO testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, faces a potential ban in the US over privacy concerns
• Walmart (+0.8%) laying off 100s of employees from e-commerce facilities (CNBC)
• Ford (-0.5%) expects EV business to lose $3bn in 2023 (Reuters)
• Block (-14.8%) hit by a short report by Hindenburg Research about “how inflated user metrics and frictionless fraud facilitation enabled insiders to cash out over $1 billion”

BANKING CRISIS

• Yellen says US not considering blanket insurance for bank deposits (Reuters)
• Yellen and Powell offer contrasting messages on bank support (Bloomberg)
• First Republic's negative book value explains lack of buying interest (Bloomberg)

ECONOMY

• BoE hikes by 25 bps, says inflation set to fade (Reuters)
• SNB hikes by 50 bps as expected despite Credit Suisse woes (Bloomberg)
• Norway Bank hikes rates by 25 bps and signalled more to come in May (RTE)
• ECB's Muller sees more hiking but thinks bulk of move behind us (Bloomberg)
• RBA considered more likely to hike in April after Fed rate hike (Financial Review)
  
  

Deeper Dive

Tech outperformance

Apple and Microsoft have reached the highest S&P weighting on record at 13.3%. The last time we saw this kind of dominance was from AT&T and IBM in the late 70s.

Here's some food for thought:

1. If the Nasdaq is up or outperforming, is it because of broad-based tech outperformance or just a handful of mega caps pulling the index higher?
2. What's the Advance/Decline like for the Nasdaq? If the Nasdaq is higher but more stocks are declining, that's not a sign of a healthy tech sector.
3. The Nasdaq 100 is having its best week over the S&P 500 since the Global Financial Crisis. Is the market confusing the end of the cycle with the beginning?

Charts of the Week

This segment of the morning wrap brings you weekly technical commentary on the ASX 200 and some of the more interesting charts in the market. These are not meant as recommendations. They are for illustrative purposes only. Any discussion of past performance is for educational purposes only. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future return. Always do your own research.

ASX 200 – Hanging around 7000

There haven’t been any major developments since last week, other than the uptrend being violated. We now have a lower low, with the 6905 swing low from late December being breached by a low of 6985. It’s hardly a significant breach, but it is a breach nonetheless, and the index is no longer in an uptrend – the technical definition at least.

With all that said, the price action is grinding around 7000, and the bulls are doing a pretty good job of playing defence and holding up around the region. If they can continue to defend 7K with some vigour, then it sets up the possibility of another leg higher in due course. If they let go of the 7K region, well, there’s not a lot of support holding this market up and thing could get very ugly, very quickly.

Newcrest Mining (NCM) – Benefiting from safe haven flows

The chart above is Newcrest (NCM) and there are some nice things happening. Long-term uptrend support, recent rounding base pattern and break above the $25 neckline, and rising average volume through the most recent part of the rally. And that all makes sense, given the turmoil we have seen in markets and the flight to safety – gold being a safe haven, of course. NCM is also not overcooked on the RSI and there is some clear air up to the April swing high and the $30 level.

WiseTech (WTC) – Uncharted territory

The chart above is WiseTech (WTC). Before I started at Livewire, when I was but a humble fund manager, I had a thesis on WTC. It was pretty straightforward. WTC had grown to be one of the biggest and most successful logistics companies in the world. Through the pandemic, companies were struggling with supply chain issues and lack of efficiency. To me, it stood to reason that WTC was in the perfect position to capitalise – every company in the world was looking to improve their supply chain, and WTC could step in to help solve the problem.