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Despite the fact that the event was a stark example of everything that is loathsome about the political system (the most corrupt since just prior to the Fall of Rome), I can't bring myself to babble about the circle-jerk in Washington over the weekend.
You know the one... where the Chief Parasites of 20 countries gathered - at taxpayers' expense - and wanked like there was no tomorrow.
As we all know, there are vast numbers of closet bum-bandits and kiddie-fiddlers in politics, and the most sociopathic of these rise to the top. Witness George the Turd, current King of the Retarded States Of Uhhhhm-erika. His eyes are so close together that you can tell he is one chromosome away from being a Cyclops... which is what happens when Mommy and Daddy are so closely related that the folks from Deliverance would be disgusted.
Anyway... as I was saying - bum-bandits and kiddie-tamperers. So doubtless the male prozzies and kiddie-pimps of Washington did a roaring trade (again, on the taxpayers' dime).
The final outcome of this massive wankfest: a bunch of platitudes about how these parasites - who enabled the whole mess (but never saw it coming) - can fix everything just fine.
Nothing else was achieved.
The final outcome of all this mutual masturbation was exactly what one should expect from the parasite class: something that achieves f#ck-all, but which costs a fortune.
Kind of like public health, public education, national 'defence', publicly-funded infrastructure, and government pension plans. All of those things are more costly, and lower quality, than they would be if provided by the market.
What did we get for this latest junket-for-human-tapeworm?
An absolutely vacuous 'agreement to take steps to do something at some later date'.
And they couldn't do this (i.e., achieve nothing) by e-mail or telephone. No - they all had to meet. Things only happen at meetings. Even if the thing that happens is nothing.
What a bunch of squeezers - led of course by Brokeback Cowboy, with the Runt King Nikita Sarkoléon tottering along behind in the high heels he has to wear to be almost the same height as the grown-ups.
In other (late) news, I wanted to have a look at US TIPS spreads today. So I opened my database and started pulling out the data... then I noticed that the data showed no change since October 31st.
Oh bugger, thought I. There must be some problem with the data fetch or storage script. So I checked it end-to-end... it was working just fine.
So I went to the Cleveland Fed TIPS data page, and discovered that they decided to stop producing the stats. Just as they did with M3, the Fed decided that if the numbers look really really whack (as us 'economists in do hood' say to our beeyatches) they would simply stop producing the statistics. Can't wait until unemployment gets to some awful level and the BLS just says "We've decided to stop producing unemployment numbers...".
On a day where Consumer Spending came in at a lousy 0.1% growth for the entire quarter to September, the Strayan market still could not resist the urge to try and rally off every decline; interestingly, the bounce attempt didn't 'stick'.
The Japanese market has also tried to rally after an early fall, with somewhat more success - but as I write this the Nikkei has given back more than half of the rally off the lows, and is hovering around unchanged for the session.
The catalyst for the bounce?
Apparently someone in Japan has finally realised that they have been in recession (for about 18 years, truth be told)... and so the ticket-clippers have spread the word that this means that Japan will have to have a stimulus package.
O... K... hmmmmm. I seem to recall that Japan has had tens of trillions of Yen's worth of both fiscal stimulus and 'quantitative easing' (deliberate attempts to weaken the Yen) since about 1995. And it's done... bupkus.
But apparently, the big story of the day is that... wait for it, wait for it...
This time, it's different.
Major Market Indices
The broad market - the All Ordinaries (XAO) - slid pretty savagely, posting a loss of 86.5 points (2.32%), finishing at 3639.5 points. The index hit an intraday high of 3682.4 at 10:00 am, while the low for the day was 3609.1 - set at 11:18 am Sydney time - after which there was a bounce of over 60 points.
Total volume traded on the ASX was a lacklustre 997.5m units, 15.5% below its 10-day average of 1.18bn shares. So we still have not seen a real washout. (I have mentioned my 3400 target several times now - we're almost there... maybe then we'll see that washout).
The ASX's daily listing of all stocks included 1099 different 3-letter FPO's which traded (i.e., had non-zero trade volume). Of these, 234 issues rose, with volume in rising issues totalling 230.8m units; there were 646 declining stocks, which traded aggregate declining volume of 695.2m shares.
Of the 492 All Ordinaries components, 93 rose while 321 fell. Volume was tilted in favour of the losers by a margin of 3.4:1, with 167.82m shares traded in gainers while 564.91m shares traded in the day's losers.
The Index that forms the cash basis for the SFE's Share Price Index Futures - the S&P/ASX 200 (XJO) - dipped rather savagely, losing 95.1 points (2.54%), closing out the session at 3653 points.
| Name | Close | +/-(%) |
|---|---|---|
| All Ordinaries | 3639.50 | -86.50 (2.3%) |
| ASX 20 | 2167.60 | -57.00 (2.6%) |
| ASX 50 | 3659.70 | -91.30 (2.4%) |
| ASX 100 | 3001.10 | -77.00 (2.5%) |
| ASX 200 | 3653.00 | -95.10 (2.5%) |
| ASX 300 | 3636.10 | -93.80 (2.5%) |
| ASX Mid-Cap 50 | 3443.30 | -105.40 (3.0%) |
| ASX Small Ordinaries | 1760.50 | -48.80 (2.7%) |
The "heavy hitters" of the Australian market - the ASX 20 Leaders (XTL) - slid 57 points (2.56%), closing out the session at 2167.6 points.
The 21 stocks which make up the index traded a total of 138.45m units; 4 index components rose, with rising volume amounting to 20.54m shares, while the 17 decliners had volume traded totalling 117.91m units. The four gainers within the index were
- Brambles (BXB), +$0.40 (5.27%) to $7.99 on volume of 6.2 million shares;
- Rio Tinto (RIO), +$1.44 (2%) to $73.44 on volume of 2.1 million shares;
- Foster's Group (FGL), +$0.08 (1.38%) to $5.88 on volume of 7.7 million shares; and
- Westfield Group (WDC), +$0.15 (1.03%) to $14.65 on volume of 4.6 million shares.
On the less salubrious side of the big-cap fence, the following stocks were the worst-performed within the index:
- Macquarie Group (MQG), -$2.13 (9.37%) to $20.60 on volume of 3.1 million shares;
- Suncorp-Metway. (SUN), -$0.60 (8.33%) to $6.60 on volume of 4.1 million shares;
- BHP Billiton (BHP), -$1.30 (4.92%) to $25.10 on volume of 16.5 million shares;
- St George Bank (SGB), -$1.1 (4.74%) to $22.10 on volume of 3.7 million shares; and
- National Australia Bank (NAB), -$0.86 (4.35%) to $18.93 on volume of 15.8 million shares.
At the other end of the market-cap spectrum lie the denizens of the ASX Small Ordinaries (XSO), which fell 48.8 points (2.7%), closing out the session at 1760.5 points.
The 208 stocks which make up the index traded a total of 201.35m units: volume in the 39 gainers totalling 47.12m shares, with trade totalling 114.84m units in the index's 141 declining components. The major percentage gainers within the index were- Australian Education Trust (AEU), +$0.09 (42.5%) to $0.29 on volume of 841.6 thousand shares;
- Austal (ASB), +$0.28 (13.85%) to $2.26 on volume of 316.8 thousand shares;
- Specialty Fashion Group (SFH), +$0.04 (12.96%) to $0.31 on volume of 6.7 million shares;
- Karoon Gas Australia (KAR), +$0.30 (12.5%) to $2.70 on volume of 318.4 thousand shares; and
- Bannerman Resources (BMN), +$0.04 (10.77%) to $0.36 on volume of 1.5 million shares.
In the red-zone of the little-stock index, the following list represents the biggest downers (in terms of percentage decline):
- Flexigroup Limited (FXL), -$0.05 (16.07%) to $0.24 on volume of 436.9 thousand shares;
- Kingsgate Consolidated (KCN), -$0.52 (15.38%) to $2.86 on volume of 233.5 thousand shares;
- CopperCo (CUO), -$0.01 (15%) to $0.07 on volume of 5.9 million shares;
- Macquarie Media Group (MMG), -$0.16 (14.81%) to $0.92 on volume of 452.8 thousand shares; and
- Atlas Iron (AGO), -$0.08 (13.64%) to $0.48 on volume of 2.6 million shares.
Index Changes
| Code | Name | Close | +/- | % | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XAO | All Ordinaries | 3639.5 | -86.5 | -2.32 | 786.1m |
| XFL | ASX 50 | 3659.7 | -91.3 | -2.43 | 339.7m |
| XJO | ASX 200 | 3653 | -95.1 | -2.54 | 654.9m |
| XKO | ASX 300 | 3636.1 | -93.8 | -2.51 | 731m |
| XMD | ASX Mid-Cap 50 | 3443.3 | -105.4 | -2.97 | 196.9m |
| XSO | ASX Small Ordinaries | 1760.5 | -48.8 | -2.7 | 194.4m |
| XTL | ASX 20 | 2167.6 | -57 | -2.56 | 132.5m |
| XTO | ASX 100 | 3001.1 | -77 | -2.5 | 536.6m |
Market Breadth
| ASX20 | XTO | XJO | XAO | XSO | Market | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advances | 4 | 21 | 39 | 93 | 39 | 234 |
| Declines | 17 | 78 | 159 | 321 | 141 | 646 |
| Advancing Volume | 20.5m | 117m | 148.3m | 167.8m | 47.1m | 230.8m |
| Declining Volume | 117.9m | 429m | 509.7m | 564.9m | 114.8m | 695.2m |
GICS Industry Indices
Among the 11 industry indices, the news was universally negative: not a single sector managed to break into the "Win" column.
Since none of the industry sectors registered a gain for the session, there is no point in burdening ourselves with the internal behaviour of advancing sectors... on to the losers.
The worst-performed index for the session was Financials ex Property Trusts (XXJ), which dipped 145.6 points (3.75%) to 3732.4 points. The 29 stocks which make up the index traded a total of 92.7m units; The 26 decliners had volume traded totalling 85.03m units, and 2 index components rose, with rising volume amounting to 2.63m shares, The major percentage decliners within the index were
- Babcock & Brown (BNB), -$0.07 (14.58%) to $0.41 on volume of 8.3 million shares;
- Tower Australia Group (TAL), -$0.27 (11.2%) to $2.14 on volume of 365 thousand shares;
- Bendigo And Adelaide Bank (BEN), -$1.33 (10.56%) to $11.26 on volume of 563.7 thousand shares;
- Bank Of Queensland. (BOQ), -$1.13 (9.47%) to $10.80 on volume of 453.7 thousand shares; and
- Macquarie Group (MQG), -$2.13 (9.37%) to $20.60 on volume of 3.1 million shares.
Just missing out on the wooden spoon was Materials (XMJ), which slid 307.6 points (3.73%) to 7949.4 points. The 45 stocks which make up the index traded a total of 156.59m units; The 39 decliners had volume traded totalling 140.92m units, and 4 index components rose, with rising volume amounting to 6.93m shares, The major percentage decliners within the index were
- Kingsgate Consolidated (KCN), -$0.52 (15.38%) to $2.86 on volume of 233.5 thousand shares;
- Atlas Iron (AGO), -$0.08 (13.64%) to $0.48 on volume of 2.6 million shares;
- Kagara Zinc (KZL), -$0.07 (13%) to $0.44 on volume of 2.1 million shares;
- Great Southern (GTP), -$0.03 (8.96%) to $0.31 on volume of 414.4 thousand shares; and
- Sundance Resources (SDL), -$0.01 (8.7%) to $0.11 on volume of 4.9 million shares.
Third-to-last amongst the sector indices was Healthcare (XHJ), which slid 285.6 points (3.12%) to 8872.9 points. The 9 stocks which make up the index traded a total of 9.21m units; The 9 decliners had volume traded totalling 9.21m units, and volume in the lone rising index component was 0m shares, The major percentage decliners within the index were
- Primary Health Care (PRY), -$0.26 (6.37%) to $3.82 on volume of 1.9 million shares;
- Healthscope (HSP), -$0.28 (5.96%) to $4.42 on volume of 463.3 thousand shares;
- CSL (CSL), -$1.28 (3.37%) to $36.70 on volume of 1.2 million shares;
- ResMed Inc. (RMD), -$0.18 (3.28%) to $5.31 on volume of 580.7 thousand shares; and
- Ramsay Health Care (RHC), -$0.32 (2.99%) to $10.37 on volume of 238.2 thousand shares.
Sector Indices
| Code | GICS Sector | Close | +/- | % | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XSJ | Consumer Staples | 6423.2 | -19 | -0.29 | 32m |
| XEJ | Energy | 12617.5 | -100.8 | -0.79 | 33m |
| XTJ | Telecommunications | 1418.1 | -13.3 | -0.93 | 25m |
| XPJ | Property Trusts | 1014.6 | -10.2 | -1 | 163m |
| XNJ | Industrials | 3371.7 | -49 | -1.43 | 106m |
| XIJ | Information Technology | 394.1 | -6.9 | -1.72 | 2m |
| XUJ | Utilities | 4492.2 | -79.6 | -1.74 | 37m |
| XDJ | Consumer Discretionary | 1155.7 | -31.4 | -2.65 | 25m |
| XHJ | Healthcare | 8872.9 | -285.6 | -3.12 | 9m |
| XMJ | Materials | 7949.4 | -307.6 | -3.73 | 157m |
| XXJ | Financials ex Property Trusts | 3732.4 | -145.6 | -3.75 | 93m |
All Ordinaries Major Movers
All Ords Volume Leaders
| Code | Name | Close | +/- | % | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT | GPT Group | 1.02 | -0.10 | -8.93 | 39.4m |
| GMG | Goodman Group | 1.14 | 0.06 | 5.07 | 26.7m |
| OZL | OZ Minerals | 0.83 | -0.06 | -6.21 | 23.8m |
| TLS | Telstra Corporation. | 4.23 | -0.03 | -0.7 | 21.4m |
| BBI | Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group | 0.06 | -0.01 | -13.43 | 20.3m |
All Ords Percentage Gainers
| Code | Name | Close | +/- | % | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AEU | Australian Education Trust | 0.29 | 0.09 | 42.5 | 841.6k |
| UOS | United Overseas Australia | 0.12 | 0.02 | 20 | 123.9k |
| CST | Cellestis | 2.40 | 0.30 | 14.29 | 77.2k |
| ASB | Austal | 2.26 | 0.28 | 13.85 | 316.8k |
| SFH | Specialty Fashion Group | 0.31 | 0.04 | 12.96 | 6.7m |
All Ords Percentage Losers
| Code | Name | Close | +/- | % | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ABS | ABC Learning Centres | 0.00 | 0.00 | 38k | |
| OIF | Orchard Industrial Property Fund | 0.16 | -0.07 | -30.43 | 4.3m |
| AIO | Asciano Group | 1.29 | -0.27 | -17.1 | 10m |
| FXL | Flexigroup | 0.24 | -0.05 | -16.07 | 436.9k |
| CUS | Customers | 0.11 | -0.02 | -16 | 660.3k |
