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Market wraps 3rd May 2022

Morning Bell - Paulina Peters

Yesterday, the Aussie share market experienced a broad sell off, with the benchmark ASX200 index falling 1.2% to 7,347 points.

Sectors wise, all sectors were in the red. The hardest hit sectors were the tech, real estate, and communication services sectors, which all fell more than 2%.

Looking at the ASX200 leaderboard, corporate bookmaker, PointsBet (ASX:PBH) led the way, advancing 5.7%, after Goldman Sachs retained its buy rating on the stock, with a $5.78 price target. That’s an 80% premium to its current share price. Also performing well were travel stocks Qantas (ASX:QAN), Flight Centre (ASX:FLT) and Webjet (ASX:WEB), which was likely due to Qantas’ trading update, which revealed that domestic travel numbers are rebounding faster than expected. On the other end, Imugene (ASX:IMU) was the worst performing stock, down 13.6% after the biotech company scraped its supply agreement with MSD, which is a tradename of Merck & Co.

The most traded stocks by Bell Direct clients yesterday included the Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF (ASX:VAS), Lake Resources (ASX:LKE) and Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS).

On Wall Street, the benchmarks started the new trading week lower, however by the late afternoon, the Dow, S&P500 and Nasdaq all managed to stage a late comeback to close in positive territory. Volatility in the bond market likely contributed to the swings in stocks. When the 10-year Treasury yield broke through 3%, which it hasn’t done since November 2018, this signalled that the bond market selloff had hit its peak and most likely wouldn’t continue until we get beyond the Fed’s update on Wednesday.

What to watch today:

  • Despite the positive close in the US, if you go by the SPI futures, the Aussie share market is set to open 0.34% lower this morning. 
  • Economic news wise, all eyes will be on the RBA. The Reserve Bank is widely expected to announce a 15 basis point rate increase when it releases a post-policy meeting statement at 2.30pm AEST.
  • All eyes will also be on Woolworths (ASX:WOW) as the retail giant is set to release its third quarter sales update.
  • In commodities, the oil price reversed its losses, to trade slightly higher, around US$105 a barrel. This was off the back of fears that supply might be impacted by a potential European Union ban on Russian crude. The gold price slumped more than 2%, as increased prospects of faster rate hikes by the Fed Reserve lifted both US Treasury yields and the US dollar. And the spot iron ore price is trading nearly 3% higher at US$142 a tonne.
  • There are two new companies debuting on the Aussie share market today. Firstly, share advisory services company, Equity Story Group. It will be trading under the ticker code EQS. And secondly, gold, silver and copper exploration company, Sierra Nevada Gold. Its ticker code SNX.
  • If you’re a shareholder of Brickworks (ASX:BKW), you can expect to receive your dividend payment today.
  • Both Santos (ASX:STO) and TPG Telecom (ASX:TPG) are holding their AGMs today.

Trading Ideas:

  • Bell Potter have maintained its Speculative Buy rating on PointsBet (ASX:PBH) with a slightly reduced valuation, from $7.50 to $6. At its current share price of $3.17, this implies 89% share price growth in a year.
  • Trading Central has a bearish signal on Michael Hill (ASX:MHJ) indicating that the stock price may fall from the close of $1.10 to the range of $0.56 - $0.66 in the next 142 days according to standard principals of technical analysis.