Australia & New Zealand Market Movers
The New Zealand market (NZX 50 Index, +0.5%) rose on Friday, following the US markets’ Thursday rally.
Fonterra (+1.7%, Shareholders’ Fund Units) trimmed its milk collection forecast by -1.0% to 1,480 million kilograms of milk solids due to “variable weather conditions…contributing to lower collections through September and early October”. A2 Milk (-2.5%) and Synlait Milk (-0.6%) moved in the opposite direction on Friday.
Spark (+1.3%) climbed after receiving overseas investment office approval to sell 70% of its TowerCo business for NZ$900 million to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. Spark retains 30% ownership of the company.
A significant market event for the NZ market occurs on Tuesday with the release of the country’s Quarter 3 Inflation Rate. Markets are expecting the annual inflation to ~6.4% from Quarter 2’s reading of 7.3%.
The Australian market (ASX 200 Index, +1.8%) rallied on Friday, but ASX 200 futures (-1.6%) are currently pointing to the market opening sharply lower today.
The Australian labour market will be in focus this Thursday with the release of its monthly jobs and employment data. Commonwealth Bank expect to see ~20,000 jobs added to the Australian economy in September. At the same time, ANZ expects to see the labour market tighten further with unemployment dropping to 3.3% in September from 3.5% in August.
Europe & US Market Movers
European markets (Stoxx 600 Index, +0.6%) gained on Friday, helped by the British government scrapping parts of its fiscal programme (tax cuts) and the firing of UK’s finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng.
US markets (S&P 500 Index -2.4%) fell on Friday, ending a wild and strange week in trading. Weighing on stocks was the release of the University of Michigan survey showing that annual inflation expectations increased in October to 5.1% from a one year low of 4.7% in September. As such, bond yields spiked, and for the second time in two days, the 10-year Treasury (+0.1%) crossed 4.0%. All sectors closed in the red on Friday. While Financials (-1.8%) fell, big banks that reported earnings on Friday bucked the trend, including Wells Fargo (+1.9%) and JPMorgan Chase (+1.7%).
In other news, EV stocks performed atrociously, with Rivian (-11.7%), Lucid Motors (-8.6%), Nio (-7.1%), and Tesla (-7.6%) among the hardest hit.
JP Morgan Chase 
JP Morgan (JPM) shares bucked another market wide sell off on Friday, reporting better-than-expected result for the third quarter as another earnings season commences. Third quarter earnings per share came in at $3.12, beating expectations by $0.27 and up +13% from the previous quarter. Consumer Banking was the stand-out, benefiting from rising interest rates. For the 2022 financial year JPM expects full year net interest income to come in at ~$66 billion, up from $62.5 billion. Another positive was the bank could resume its share buyback programme from early next year.
In light of economic headwinds JPM increased its provision for credit losses to $1.54 billion, up from $1.1 billion in the previous quarter to brace for economic slowdown.
What Markets will be Watching this Week
Monday
US NFIB Small Business Optimism
Tuesday
AU Westpac Consumer Confidence Index OCT
AU NAB Business Confidence SEP
Wednesday
GB BoE Gov Bailey Speech
Thursday
US PPI MoM SEP
US FOMC Minutes
NZ Food Inflation YoY SEP
Friday
US Inflation Rate YoY SEP
NZ Business NZ PMI SEP