The Chicago Fed National
Activity Index for October showed minus 0.05 points against the positive 0.17 in September 2022, demonstrating signs of slowing growth after The Conference Board released October’s Leading Economic Index decreasing last Friday.
Industrial production had declined 0.1 per cent after a momentary rise of 0.1 per cent the previous month.
It was announced that Bob Iger would return as Chief Executive Officer of Disney, replacing Bob Chapek. Shares in the company rallied to US$96.67 following the news - up 5.14 per cent.
Days ago, Chapek announced he was cutting costs at the company to deal with the growing costs of its streaming service.
Chapek was named chief executive in February 2020, succeeding Iger – who had held the role for 15 years and had stated he had no appetite for a return at the time.
Iger has signed on for two years “with a mandate from the board to set the strategic direction for renewed growth and to work closely with the Board in developing a successor to lead the Company at the completion of his term”.
Rest of World
European markets continued to fall off last week’s momentum following the sharp fall in oil prices affecting utility stocks, and speculation around potentially sustained and increased restrictions within China following news of Beijing’s cases reaching 26,824 on Sunday, close to the daily infection peak in April.
Commodities
Bitcoin is down a further 3.8 per cent to US$16,029 per coin as markets continue to remain weak following the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Oil fell 0.8 per cent, a 10-month low after Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ producers consider a production hike for January 2023 of up to half a million barrels a day, with Brent Crude Oil falling to US$86.9 a barrel.
Australia
The Australian market modestly traded down 0.2 per cent yesterday on a relatively muted day for company-specific news flow.
QBE ended the day down 0.56 per cent on their trading performance through the third quarter of 2022 on elevated catastrophe and crop claims and an updated outlook for their financial year 2022.
Catastrophes costs for this year are expected to be A$1,060 million, surpassing the catastrophe allowance for the year of A$962 million.
On a supportive premium rate environment expected for the rest of 2023, a gross written premium growth of 10.0 percent is expected for FY22.
New Zealand
The NZX closed the day positive, up 0.5 per cent following the rally of U.S. indices over the weekend.
CVT (Comvita) closed the day modestly up 0.94 per cent, giving a trading update following their Singles’ Day sales performance.
The brand ranked at ranks one, two and three in the honey category products during this event. They are the sixth largest brand in broader healthy foods category and the only international brand recognised on this list.
Management has maintained guidance for double-digit earnings before interest, tax and depreciation growth in the financial year for 2023 with a strong weighting towards the second half, despite ongoing disruption to the offline store network and CBEC into China.
Credit card spending for October showed a tapered growth, at NZ$4.5 billion.
This is up by 24.8 per cent over the previous year’s pandemic-ridden October and up 1.0 percent over September 2022.
The total balance of credit cards owed is NZ$6.0 billion, the highest it has been year to date but limited compared to the December 2019 figure of NZ$7.5 billion.
Coming up today
New Zealand companies Argosy Property and Turners Automotive Group are set to announce their half year-end earnings for 2023 with the latter having provided a trading update at the end of October, providing colour on their profit before tax figure and trading conditions.
Overseas merchandise trade figures for October will be published at 10:45am by Stats New Zealand.
While there are no results today in Australia, AGMs for Star Entertainment, BlueScope Steel, Brickworks, Fortescue and Perseus Mining are scheduled for the day.
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All market pricing and announcements are sourced from Refinitiv, NZX and ASX.
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