May has started as a shocker, with our stock market down 5% in a day. This sell off was over the top, with Wall Street a lot less spooked overnight, despite the fact that our Coronavirus data is just about the best in the world, while the Yanks are still struggling! But how good was April? For the US, its stock market knocked over its third best month since 1945 and World War II! This chart shows it nicely.
Here’s the local story for April below and it looked pretty damn good, until Friday. More on that and why later. Let’s first understand why stock markets have been rebounding.
For the chart above, you’re looking at an 8.8% gain in a month, which meant our total Coronavirus crash had been cut back to 22% before that 5% fall on Friday.
So this raises two questions. First, why the big bounce across April? And then, why the sell off on May 1, which makes me think about writing: “May day! May day!” But that could cause a little distress.
The April bounce was down to:
- The flattening of the infection and death curves around the world.
- Intermittent talk about treatment drugs for the symptoms of COVID-19.
- Belief that containment restrictions will be eased faster than expected.
- This has to lead to recalculations for economic growth and the earnings of Coronavirus-affected companies.
- And then there were the poor old hedge fund managers who have been shorting the market, who would have been caught out by the above factors and the huge 8.8% bounce back locally over April. When this sort of thing happens, short sellers get squeezed and have to buy, which ironically pumps up the price they expected would fall.
- The magnitude of the stimulus worldwide and the determination of central banks to do “whatever it takes” to keep money markets working. Right now, no one wants to fight the Fed or any of its buddy central bankers around the world.
OK, so what happened on Friday?
First, financial and material stocks fell on Wall Street on Thursday and we nearly always follow suit. And given the importance of these two sectors to our S&P/ASX 200 Index, you can see why we fell yesterday (Friday) and why our market hasn’t rebounded as strongly as Wall Street. Before Friday’s trade, the S&P 500 was only down 14% since the high before the Coronavirus crash!
Second, on that criteria alone, US stocks were overdue for a pullback and the Index and individual stocks had to be a victim of profit-takers, sooner or later.
Third, markets are starting to focus on economic numbers, which I think is premature. The numbers linked to lockdown have to be ordinary to scary. But the real test of whether the economic hit will be bad or terrible will be based on the rate of improvement of readings such as unemployment, as we all go back to work.
- Short sellers were beaten up over April and these guys are the “try, try again” types. The virus improvement data has helped long-only investors and hurt the ‘shorters’. Now we need economic data to get better faster than the economists are predicting and doomsday merchants are hoping for.
- And when short-term players smell blood, they take profits and run. And why wouldn’t they, when stocks surged 8.8% in April?
For the local story this week, the S&P/ASX 200 Index did end up a measly 0.1% but it wasn’t helped by the huge 276-point clobbering on Friday, leaving the Index at 5245.9.
March GDP numbers from overseas didn’t help stocks. The EU shrunk 3.8%, while the US went backwards to the tune of 4.8%. The reality of the impact of Coronavirus containment policies is becoming statistically stark but it should have been expected – you can’t stop workers going to work and not expect crappy economic readings.
But what gets me is that US stock market stories aren’t focusing on these predictably bad economic growth numbers for the US and EU, like we reportedly did. Those reports are really guesses that could be over-hyped as an explanation.
Hindering our stock market is the role the banks have been asked to play in rescuing the economy, with unheard of initiatives such as loan deferments bound to hit their bottom lines, even before we account for a slower economy ahead, with much higher unemployment.
Westpac, which reports next week, gained 0.1% to close at $15.34, while dividend-deferring ANZ lost 1.7% to finish at $15.75. NAB gained 2.4%, despite a cut in its dividend and announcing a $3.5 billion capital raising.
Note that Qube is going for a capital raising. These capital-raising companies have a history of seeing their share prices spike after the raising but Qube’s stock price slumped 7.8% on the news.
Coles dropped 6.2% after toilet-paper driven sales along with other essentials, created a bonanza in the March quarter, which suggests future quarters could be slower, as we start to use the stored items in our homes.
One of my stocks on my Monday list of potential big rebounders – Worley – saw a 20% spike after it revealed it had cut 3,000 workers because of the damn virus.
What I liked
- One economist thinks we could even avoid a technical recession! For the life of me, I can’t find where I saw this but the guy is a respected number cruncher. I feel that he’ll be wrong but if we go back to normal faster than we all think, we could be surprised!
- Bespoke Investments research shows when the US stock market rebounds over half of its initial huge crash, the chance of there being a bigger leg down is really small! It happened in the Great Depression but that was the last time.
- According to CoreLogic, despite the massive crash of stocks from late February to the depths of the dive on March 23, Australian capital city dwelling prices actually rose by just 0.2% in April. After a 10.2% decline over 21 months to June last year, average prices have now had their 10th rise in a row and are up 10.3% from their low but they’re still 1% below their 2017 high. Capital city dwelling prices are now up 9.7% from a year ago.
- Oil price speculators will like this from Morgan’s Michael Knox: “A recovery of Chinese oil demand in the second quarter, in addition to the US increasing US demand by no later than the 4th quarter, should generate the beginning of a long fall of the stocks-to-consumption ratio of US oil. This will be aided by the exit of many fracking producers. This should generate a steady rally in oil prices beginning no later than the final quarter of 2020 and continuing through 2021.”
- Here’s one of the few economic readings I currently care about – consumer confidence. The weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence rating rose by 1% to 85 points. Sentiment has lifted for four successive weeks and is up 27.5% since hitting record lows (lowest since 1973) of 65.3 points on March 29. This reflects that consumers are starting to feel less panicky about COVID-19, the lockdown and when they might get back to work and earn decent incomes again. JobKeeper has certainly helped raise confidence levels.
- The Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell reminded us that the Fed stands ready to do “whatever it takes” to support the economy, as the jobless number climbed to 30 million, or 15%.
- The ECB was similarly supportive of money markets last week and said so.
What I didn’t like
- Trump talk that China should be hit with tariffs as a punishment for its role in the Coronavirus crisis. We don’t need our major export customer beaten up right now.
- This on the property outlook by Shane Oliver: “Social distancing is driving a collapse in sales volumes, with both buyers and sellers putting property transactions on the backburner, given social distancing and associated economic uncertainty. But a sharp rise in unemployment to around 10%, a stop to immigration which (in the absence of a vaccine against Covid-19) is likely to persist beyond the likely easing of the domestic lockdown and rent holidays/reductions point to property demand falling more than supply and as a result pose a major threat to property prices. Prices are expected to fall between 5% to 20%, but government support measures, including wage subsidies, along with bank mortgage payment deferrals along with a plunge in listings will help limit falls at least for the next six months.”If we have a quicker-than-expected easing of lockdown measures, Shane pulls his house price fall down to 10%. Chris Joye thinks house prices will only have a small fall before booming! See my interview with him here [1].
- Most economic data here and overseas, because it has to be scary unless it came from February before the crisis got serious. I won’t take economic data seriously until we start reopening the economy. That’s when I want to gauge the bounce back. If it’s slower than expected, then we have a problem for stocks.
- The market taking forecasts from companies seriously. They don’t know the future. Neither do I but given how bad the story was in late February to most of March, we’ve dodged a Great Depression bullet. And the fact some people want to stress out about company CEO guesses on the future annoys me, big time. It’s a wait-and-see situation.
- Short sellers have been shocked by our April’s 8.8% rise and they would’ve been caught out. So they have to be a part of Friday’s sell off.
- Short-term players are always the people who determine big swings either way. They can unsettle long-term investors, who depend on the stock market for income and growing their nest eggs.
What really happened
Short sellers and profit-takers were the big drivers of the Friday sell off. To understand this, you have to factor in this observation from Phillip Colmar and Santiago Espinosa, strategists at MRB Partners, on CNBC overnight: “The sharp relief rally in equities has now moved ahead of underlying fundamentals, leaving room for near-term disappointments,” they said in a note to clients. “Many authorities are looking to reopen their economies but doing so safely and to near previous output levels will require a series of medical breakthroughs and widespread distribution of the treatment.”
Also, there is a belief that a secular shift is happening that could hurt businesses forever! Could airlines suffer customer losses forever because businesses use Zoom for interstate and even international meetings?
Could conferences become more online than ever before? Did the lockdown convert more and more people to Amazon Prime and other online businesses?
Going into the lockdown, 11.5% of US retailers were online but this has thought to have grown to 17%!
We’ve dodged a bullet. I think we’ve seen the worst of the stock market sell off. But, as I’ve suggested, I expected other smaller legs down for the stock market, which I think create a buying opportunity for the patient, long-term investor, who doesn’t easily get spooked by the silliness that prevails in the short term on stock markets.
Click here [2] to watch a recording of yesterday’s webinar with Julia Lee.
The week in review:
- In my article this week [3], I highlighted which stocks on the ASX have a strongly predicted upside. 16 of them could be in for a 40% plus rise, if these experts know what they’re talking about!
- Investing offshore is often recommended when creating a balanced risk portfolio, but is that still the case during these volatile times? [4]
- The US released their large cap tech results this week, showing more and more reasons why tech stocks are a buy [5].
- This is the time to take advantage of the best buying opportunity in banks in a decade. If you are thinking of buying into the banks, here are Tony Featherstone’s thoughts [6].
- James Dunn looked at 3 inverse ETFs [7] that did give the performance in a crash that they had promised.
- The selling point of a self-managed superfund (SMSF) is being able to control your own fund. Though, there are a number of questions you need to be asking before setting up an SMSF, with the most important being: who will control your fund when you no longer can? [8]
- In Buy, Hold, Sell – What the Brokers Say this week, there were a total of 29 downgrades and 25 upgrades in the first [9] and second [10]
- In Questions of the Week [11], Paul Rickard answered questions about Ramsay Health Care and Blackmores, super contributions and ANZ deferring its dividend.
On our YouTube channel this week:
- Investors alert: hot new Aussie company Bill Gates is invested in [12] – Switzer TV: Investing
- Doomsday merchants be aware, Chris Joye says property prices will not slump! [13] – Switzer TV: Property
Top Stocks – how they fared:
The Week Ahead:
Australia
Monday May 4 – Building approvals (March)
Monday May 4 – ANZ Job ads (April)
Tuesday May 5 – Weekly payrolls jobs & wages
Tuesday May 5 – New vehicle sales (April)
Tuesday May 5 – Reserve Bank Board meeting
Wednesday May 6 – Retail trade (March)
Wednesday May 6 – Lending indicators (March)
Thursday May 7 – International trade (March)
Friday May 8 – Statement on Monetary Policy
Overseas
Monday May 4 – China Caixin manufacturing (April)
Monday May 4 – US Factory orders
Tuesday May 5 – US International trade (March)
Tuesday May 5 – US ISM services (April)
Wednesday May 6 – China Caixin services (April)
Wednesday May 6 – US ADP employment (April)
Thursday May 7 – China International trade (April)
Thursday May 7 – US Challenger job cuts (April)
Friday May 8 – US Non-farm payrolls (April)
Food for thought:
“No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.” – Charlie Munger
Stocks shorted:
ASIC releases data daily on the major short positions in the market. These are the stocks with the highest proportion of their ordinary shares that have been sold short, which could suggest investors are expecting the price to come down. The table shows how this has changed compared to the week before.
Chart of the week:
Annual headline inflation reached its highest level in 5 ½ years, rising from 1.8% to 2.2%, driven by a 3.2% increase in annual food inflation as seen in this chart from CommSec:
Top 5 most clicked:
- 16 top 100 stocks that could rebound big time [3] – Peter Switzer
- 5 stocks to bank on right now [6] – Tony Featherstone
- Buy, Hold, Sell – What the Brokers Say [9] – Rudi Filapek-Vandyck
- Should you still invest offshore? [4] – Paul Rickard
- 4 reasons why you should have GOOGly eyes for Alphabet [5] – Charlie Aitken
Recent Switzer Reports:
- Monday 27 April: 16 top 100 stocks that could rebound big time [14]
- Thursday 30 April: 4 reasons why you should have GOOGly eyes for Alphabet [15]
Important: This content has been prepared without taking account of the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular individual. It does not constitute formal advice. Consider the appropriateness of the information in regards to your circumstances.