It was a rough day on the ASX, shedding 68.8 points or 0.893% to 8,186.80 points and crossing below its 20-day moving average as bank and mining stocks languished.
There was little forward progress on the ASX at all today – the only sector in the green was Utilities, up 0.73%. New Zealand-based power company Mercury NZ was one of the bigger movers, lifting 2.74%.
The worst-performing sectors were Financials (-1.19%), Industrials (-0.99%) and Materials (-0.88%) but all sectors except Consumer discretionary, Energy and Utilities fell at least 0.61%.
Of the major banking stocks, ANZ was the standout, shedding 4.08% as the bank went ex-dividend. Macquarie also fell 1.69% and NAB 1.57%.
The worst-performing stocks overall were Life360 Inc, down 6.66%, and Mineral Resources down 6.53%.
The ASX is essentially unchanged over the last five trading days, 2.36% below its 52-week high.
Small cap increases
Among the small caps Magnetite Mines Ltd (ASX:MGT) gained 20.85% today to hit $0.145, Jindalee Lithium Ltd (ASX:JLL, OTCQX:JNDAF) was as much as 17.81% higher to $0.43 and International Graphite Ltd (ASX:IG6) reached $0.075, which was an increase of 8.7% on yesterday's close.
Other gains were made by Reward Minerals Ltd (ASX:RWD), up by as much as 8.24% to $0.092, Piedmont Lithium (ASX:NASDAQ:PLL, OTC:PLLTL) benefited from a positive quarterly, rising 8.11% to $0.20, Element 25 Ltd (ASX:E25, OTCQX:ELMTF) hit an intra-day high of $0.275, a lift of 7.85%, Ora Banda Mining Ltd (ASX:OBM) was as much as 6.76% higher to $0.79 and Predictive Discovery Ltd (ASX:ASX:PDI (OTC:IDXG), OTC:PDIYF) increased by 5.1% to $0.2575.
Will US stock market dominance continue?
“We think yes,” writes XTB research director Kathleen Brooks, “There are three reasons for this: growth, earnings and momentum.”
“The US is expected to grow at a faster rate than Europe and the UK in the coming years. The IMF’s US growth forecast for 2025 is 2.2%, in Europe and the UK it is 1.2%.
“Thus, the US is expected to grow at nearly double the rate of European economies, which adds to its exceptionalism and the attractiveness of its stock market over European markets.
“Earnings growth is also in the US’s favour. 456 out of 500 companies on the S&P 500 have reported earnings for Q3. So far, across all sectors, sales growth has beaten expectations by 1.4%, while earnings growth has seen a positive surprise to the tune of 7%.
“This has been led by energy, consumer discretionary, communications and tech. This compares to Europe.
“For the Eurostoxx 50 index, 39 out of 50 companies have reported earnings for Q3. The sales surprise for all sectors is -1.2%, while the earnings surprise is -0.6%.
“Thus, European shares have underperformed expectations, while US stocks have outperformed expectations when it comes to earnings. This adds to the attractiveness of the US stock market.
“Momentum is also important. It feels like US stocks have such an advantage over the European stocks that they may not be able to play catch up.
“As you can see below, US stocks definitely have a performance advantage vs. their European peers.”
Chart: S&P500, Eurostoxx index and FTSE 100:
The Five at Five
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One to watch
Strickland Metals makes new gold discovery at Rogozna
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