Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
a listener production.
The Aussie market bounces back hard, having its best day in a week as better news flows through the Middle East.
And there's plenty of economic data that investors should watch next week.
Good afternoon. I'm Steve Daglian. I'm Laura Bessarati. It's Friday the 29th of May.
Chapter 2: What factors contributed to the ASX surge on May 29?
Welcome to the CommSec Market Update.
Well, what a way to end the week and the month. So the Aussie market up by 1.6% today. So it looked like it was going to be our best day in about a week earlier on when we were up by 1.4%. But now it looks like
Chapter 3: What economic data should investors watch for next week?
It's our best day in a couple of weeks. So you have to go all the way back to the 8th of April to find a bigger improvement for the ASX 200 index. So quite a positive session. And this is really as it has been for the past couple of weeks, months. It's all hinging on what's happening in the Middle East.
And the US and Iran have reportedly reached a tentative deal to extend their ceasefire for 60 days. Well, maybe.
Yeah, well, wait and see. It's a tentative deal. So a couple of important caveats here. One is that President Trump has yet to approve the deal. That's a big one. That's a big one. Iran didn't immediately confirm any deal either. Also big. The Vice President, J.D. Vance, said that the U.S. and Iran are going back and forth on a couple of language points. So certainly not set in stone.
And we know how fluid progress is here. And just yesterday, a case in point, of course, our market at one stage was having its worst day in 12 weeks. We were down about 1.8% of the worst levels, and that was because of tensions ramping up and a number of military strikes from both parties. So we'll wait and see, but at least this is good news today.
Once again, the Middle East conflict, as you point out, has been the key driver for a while now. And it's been 13 weeks now that the conflict has gone on and we've wiped out about $230 billion or around 5.5% from our market. So quite significant.
Absolutely. But looking at what's happened over the course of this week, it looks like we're going to wrap up with a gain of 0.9% over the week. That will be our second straight weekly improvement. And over the course of the month, it was looking a little bit uncertain for a while because we weren't sure if we were going to cross over into positive territory. We had a few
rough days but it looks like we're going to end may with a gain of 0.8 which i guess is better than a decline and it's our second straight monthly gain as well yeah we'll take it because of course we fell almost eight percent in uh in march because of the uh u.s iran war of course and it means since the start of this year we've crept into positive territory up a fifth of one percent in 2026 which isn't too bad considering that really hefty decline we had a couple of months ago
So across the sectors over the month, we had the materials, which have been the best performers, around 10% higher. Consumer discretionary up around four. Healthcare have been amongst the worst, down about nine. And also utilities and energy have fallen between six and about 8%.
Looking at today's session, though, we've seen most of the sectors improving with the exception of utilities, which is down by about a third of one percent and energy stocks just edging lower. We have seen oil prices sliding towards 92 US a barrel and they're actually on track for a sharp monthly fall today. of around 13%.
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Chapter 4: How did the US-Iran negotiations impact investor sentiment?
We've seen gold stocks improving. BHP is the biggest support within the materials space. It's up close to 3%. And improvements really everywhere else. Financials up 1.2%. Tech stocks up 1.7%. Real estate up 1.9%. So really strong improvements across many of the sectors.
So let's look at some stocks. We've got Eagers Automotive up about 1.7%. A reminder, though, that yesterday it was on the receiving end of four brokers reducing their targets for where they think their share price might be in 12 months' time.
The car dealership owner at its AGM also warned yesterday that it's facing supply constraints due to demand for electric vehicles, which have spiked because of the conflict in the Middle East.
Travel-related stocks have actually reacted quite positively to the news of the ceasefire because, as we know, travel stocks or some of those hit the hardest when the war began with surging jet fuel prices and also travel interruptions. But with the latest headlines, we've seen Qantas jump around 3%, Virgin Australia up over 6%, Flight Centre is up 8%, we have web travel higher as well.
So really a positive response from stocks within that space today.
We've got CSL down again today by 1%. Just a reminder, this was the healthcare company that briefly was Australia's largest stock on our share market. Well, today it received another price target cut and a broker downgrade as well. Now, this is a couple of weeks after a handful of other brokers lowered their targets.
And the catalyst seemed to have been a trading update where it lowered its goals for both revenues and also profits. And and it flagged challenges with one of its business units as well, which it bought for about $12 billion four years ago, and now it's announced quite significant impairment charges.
Gold stocks have bounced back after falling by 7.5% in yesterday's session due to gold prices hitting a two-month low. We've seen commodity prices just continue to be driven by the latest headlines and developments out of the Middle East. So last night, On news of that potential 60-day ceasefire, gold jumped by around 2%. It's up again in today's session.
And that's seen the gold subsector on the Aussie market lift by 4.5%. And while yesterday eight of the 10 worst performers were gold stocks, today many of the winners are actually gold miners. So a strong rebound.
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