Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
a listener production. The ASX finally snaps its longest losing streak since 2018. And what should investors be on the lookout for next week? Good afternoon. I'm Laura Bessarati. It's Friday, the 1st of May. Welcome to the CommSec Market Update.
Chapter 2: What led to the ASX snapping its longest losing streak?
Well, it's been a much better start to the brand new month of May. Wow, how time flies. I can't believe we're at May already. But of course, we had another month done and dusted. We spoke about how we performed over the course of April briefly yesterday. I also recorded a video today, the month in review video, which you can find online.
on our YouTube channel if you're interested to see how markets wrapped up over the course of the month. But look, today, leading into the close, the Aussie market is up by around three quarters of 1%. Now, we were up a little more earlier on in the day, up around 1.1%. But look, the good news is that we've finally snapped our longest losing streak in almost eight years.
And today has also been our best day in about three weeks which certainly helped our market lift from the three-week lows that we did hit yesterday. If we look out a little bit further though over the course of the week, the Aussie market is still down understandably because we did have... you know, those eight straight sessions of decline.
So we've declined every day this week, except for today. So down by around 0.65% over the course of the week, which is our third straight weekly decline. But we did notch an improvement over the course of April. So we're up by a little over 2%. Now, we did have a strong lead in from Wall Street overnight, which hit yet another record high.
Investors have been seeming to shrug off the escalating threats between the U.S. and Iran. and instead focusing on strong earnings. So eight in 10 S&P 500 stocks so far have beat earnings expectations. And that's really what's been driving the US market higher to a number of record highs over the course of the month. And in fact, the S&P 500 index posted its best month since November 2020.
It was up something like 10% over the course of the month. Now, something that hasn't disappeared is the tensions between the US and Iran. We've seen, you know, those hopes for a peace deal starting to dim. You know, the expectations that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. They're also starting to be dashed.
And, you know, tensions between the two parties just seem to be moving closer to escalation. escalation rather than de-escalation. So the latest is that President Trump reaffirmed that the US would maintain its naval blockade of Iranian ports to intensify economic pressures.
And then plus yesterday, we spoke about how there were some reports that Trump might start weighing new military options in Iran. So definitely going the wrong way. We've also heard that Iran's Supreme Leader, also dampened prospects for a deal by saying that it would not relinquish its nuclear and missile capabilities.
So they're certainly not seeing eye to eye and they seem to be locked in a standoff for now. So as has been the case since the conflict began, a lot can happen over the course of the weekend between Friday night and Monday morning. So I'm sure we'll have a lot to catch up on Monday morning. with Gil and James to kick off next week. So we'll wait and see what happens there.
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Chapter 3: How did Wall Street's performance impact the ASX?
I will quickly touch on Apple's results because their shares are up 2% in after hours trade. And that was after providing a strong forecast for the quarter ahead. It also topped earnings and revenue estimates, helped by strong demand for its iPhones and also Mac computers. So that's the last of the Magnificent Seven to post earnings results until NVIDIA. So they'll be the last one out.
They'll be out on May the 20th. They always report later than all of the other companies. But back to tonight, we have a Colgate, Moderna and also Estee Lauder. Then quickly looking to next week, of course, the big one is going to be the RBA interest rate decision. Tuesday, 2.30pm, there's a 76% chance that they will hike rates for the third meeting in a row.
and that would take the cash rate to 4.35% to its highest level since December 2024. So that's the big one that markets are going to be watching for. Of course, the press conference with Michelle Bullock an hour after that decision is handed down, so 3.30pm Sydney time. We also get more bank results over the course of next week, including NAB on Monday, Westpac on Tuesday.
We have Bank of Queensland trading ex-dividend on Monday, NAB ex-div on Thursday, and Westpac XDIV on Friday. Then right at the tail end of the week, we get US jobs data, which is going to be very closely watched. And we also have the Macquarie Conference, which is essentially a three-day event when over 100 Aussie and New Zealand-based companies host presentations.
They talk about macroeconomic themes and they also talk about what's been shaping their businesses. So this is certainly something that could see share prices moving around on the days that the company presents, especially if the company sounds upbeat about their future or if they warn about a profit downgrade.
So that'll be, as I mentioned, a three-day event between Tuesday and Thursday, which could see share prices move around. So another busy week ahead. Thank you for tuning in this whole week and we'll chat to you again on Monday morning.
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