Goldman talked to an 11 per cent increase in operating expenses amidst a tough environment where revenues were down on low deal and trading activity.
Conversely, the market reacted favourably to rival investment bank Morgan Stanley’s fourth quarter results, as earnings per share of US$1.26 beat analyst estimates. Morgan Stanley was the market leader at the time of writing, up 7.2 per cent.
Other notable companies on the move included Tesla (+6.6 per cent) after it was reported the company had received a step up in demand following cutting prices for its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in the US.
Tesla owner and founder Elon Musk also begins trial today for actions surrounding his dissemination of information via social media platform Twitter in 2018, where he publicly floated his plans to take Tesla private.
Gaming company Roblox (NYSE listed) has surged 12.5 per cent at the time of writing after the release of its December Metrics report showed estimated bookings of over US$430m were up 17 to 20 per cent compared to last year’s figure.
Further supporting the share price were daily active user numbers, also up a similar 18 per cent versus December last year.
Rest of the World
China released GDP data for the quarter to December 2022, holding flat and tallying to a yearly figure of 2.9 per cent, ahead of market expectations.
Highlights included industrial production up 1.3 per cent year on year from expectations for just 0.2 per cent, and retail salesm down 1.8 per cent, but still higher than expectations for -8.6 per cent amidst rising Covid cases and restrictions through late 2022.
An interesting update also included refreshed population statistics, which showed China’s population falling for the first time since the 1960′s, with deaths outpacing births by 850,000 in 2022.
In light of this, Asian indices were mixed overnight as the Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite lost 0.8 and 0.1 per cent, while the Nikkei found a 1.2 per cent gain.
Other survey data included PwC’s Annual Global CEO Survey, which showed 73 per cent of chief executives believe global growth will slow over the next 12 months, the highest percentage since the measure was first taken in 12 years ago.
Commodities
Oil reacted to the positive economic data out of the world’s second largest economy with Brent Crude rising 1.3 per cent to US$85.5 per barrel.
Gold (-0.6 per cent) traded against a stronger US dollar overnight, and the major cypto’s Bitcoin and Ethereum were quiet, changing less than 1 per cent each over the last 24 hour period.
New Zealand
The S&P/NZX50 pushed 0.6 per cent higher to close that day at 11,881 points, buoyed by large caps Mainfreight (+3.5 per cent) and Fisher and Paykel (+2.4 per cent) .
Hot off the press was ANZ’s Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion print for the fourth quarter of 2022 which reiterated a heightened level of pessimism surrounding the New Zealand economy.
In the survey, a net 73 per cent of respondents expected economic conditions to deteriorate, down from 43 per cent in Q3.
Further, employment and hiring intentions fell into negative territory where a net 2 per cent of firms reported decreasing headcounts versus a net 9 per cent increase in Q3.
Overall, these measures are congruent with headline business confidence hitting record lows of -70 in December.
Other stock specific news included Trade Window Holdings (outside the NZX50) announcing a capital raise of up to $20m.
The offering itself was at 45 cents per share, a 10 per cent discount to the current share price, as management indicated the cash would be used to build its global trade platform and drive organic growth and a path to profitability.
To no surprise, TWL traded lower on the day to $0.46 (-8.0 per cent).
Other single stock laggards came in the form of healthcare company Pacific Edge and industrial Metro Performance Glass, losing 3.9 and 2.7 per cent respectively.
Australia
Australian equities remained relatively flat as mining stocks struggled against slipping gold and iron ore prices.
Notable decliners amongst the ASX200 included Regis Resources and Gold Road Resources, falling 4.8 and 4.4 per cent.
In contrast to the ANZ business survey from across the ditch, Westpac’s consumer confidence for Australia rose 5 per cent month on month to 84.3 in January (from 80.3 in December), the largest monthly increase since April 2021.
Westpac said the possible reason for the improvement in confidence was that it was the first month since April last year that there was no cash rate increase (despite no RBA meeting in January).
Home appliance staple JB Hi-Fi posted record revenue and earnings for the first half of 2023 as sales and net profit of A$5.3bn and A$0.39bn exceeded expectations markedly.
Management noted strong consumer spending patterns through the Black Friday and Boxing Day Promotions as reasons for the result, despite the unfavourable backdrop of rising interest rates and home loan payments on its customers.
Interestingly, JBH.AX finished 0.8 per cent lower, retreating from gains made earlier in the day immediately following the result.
Other news included reports out of Australia suggesting private equity company Bain Capital is preparing to list Virgin Australia, Australia’s second largest airline, just two years after it purchased the business after it collapsed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Virgin posted an operating loss of roughly A$400m in the full year to June 2022, with management expecting a profitable FY2023 following a rebound in global tourism despite increased headwinds from rising fuel costs.
Listed airline Qantas move little in response to the news, trading down 0.3 per cent.
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All market pricing and announcements are sourced from Refinitiv, NZX and ASX.
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