Pre-Open Data
Key Data for the Week
- Monday – AUS – Building Approvals
- Monday – AUS – Retail Sales
- Tuesday – AUS – RBA Interest Rate Decision
- Tuesday – EUR – Retail Sales
- Wednesday – EUR – Industrial Production
- Thursday – US – Jobless Claims
- Thursday – US – FOMC Meeting Minutes
- Friday – CHINA – Consumer Price Index
- Friday – UK – Trade Balance
Australian Market
The Australian sharemarket closed up 0.6% on Friday, however, remained relatively flat for the week. The Energy sector was the best performer after OPEC talks to increase oil supply broke down; Woodside Petroleum added 3.0% and Oil Search rose 1.3%.
Travel stocks also rallied from heavy losses throughout the week due to increased lockdowns; Webjet and Flight Centre rose 4.9% and 4.5% respectively.
The Financials sector was strengthened by the big four banks; ANZ, Commonwealth Bank and NAB all rose between 0.7% and 1.0%, while Westpac eked out less than a 0.1% gain. Magellan Financial Group outperformed the fund managers, up 2.7%.
Telstra rose 0.8% to continue its recent run after the sale of 49% of its towers business for $2.8 billion. Over the week, Telstra shares were up over 5.5%.
The Australian futures market points to a flat opening today, ahead of tomorrow’s RBA meeting.
Overseas Markets
European sharemarkets closed slightly higher on Friday, as the broad based STOXX Europe 600 added 0.2%, while over the course of the week edged 0.2% lower. Airbus and Veolia outperformed; up 2.1% and 1.0% respectively, while Vestas Wind Systems slipped 3.3%.
US sharemarkets rallied on Friday as job growth data surged the most in 10 months, while the unemployment rate edged up to 5.9%. The report strengthened views the Federal Reserve will not rush to tighten monetary policy any time soon and risk stifling the economic recovery from the pandemic. Friday’s gains marked a seventh straight session of records, a feat not seen since 1997. Technology stocks rallied; Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Fortinet and Microsoft all rose between 1.9% and 2.4%. Financials also closed higher; Blackrock lifted 1.6%, Visa added 1.5% and MasterCard closed up 1.2%.
Over the course of the week, the Dow Jones gained 1.0%, the S&P 500 added 1.7% and the NASDAQ rose 1.9%.
CNIS Perspective
In March 2020, as we first started to head into COVID-19 lockdowns, many predictions were made regarding the speed for vaccine development. Previous development of a modern vaccine had been as long as five years. While the pandemic has been causing devastation around the world, with nearly four million deaths, it has not been nearly as destructive as it could have been. We are coming out of COVID-19 years early, with many livelihoods and businesses preserved, compared to what many expected. Credit goes to our spectacular biotechnology industry.
The most amazing COVID-19 technology story has to be the vaccines. Moderna created the first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine within two days of receiving the genetic code by email (the genetic code was first published by an Australian lab). It’s hard to overstate the tremendous advance in both speed and effectiveness of this new technological platform.
Now that we know how well mRNA vaccines work, we can look forward to decades of new vaccines, both for potential coronavirus variants and for many other health threats.
The impact of technology is often discussed elsewhere when talking about COVID-19, such as the ability to work from home and QR scanning, however, the power and progress of biotechnology has arguably created the greatest impact.
Should you wish to discuss this or any other investment related matter, please contact your Investment Services Team on (02) 4928 8500.
Disclaimer
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