The week ahead
- Expecting earnings out from Apple, Amazon and Starbucks. Apple is of course the “big boy” here — missed earnings won’t look good for the NASDAQ. We’re expecting to see strong cloud growth and slowing device growth, as consumers tighten their belts. Curious about AWS growth at Amazon and we will be looking for Starbucks’ organic growth vs. price-hike growth, as well as how their difficult situation in China is doing.
- Apple and Amazon have contributed +35% and +29% to the US model portfolio respectively, while Starbucks has contributed -3% (total model portfolio positions to be updated later this week, but see attached screenshot for full list of holdings). Model portfolio has returned +7.38% while still holding plenty of cash.
- Expecting a US jobs report out later this week to show a slowing labour market. Anything hotter will be a blow to the Fed, who are counting on a cooling labour market to lead to a “soft landing”.
- Metro Performance Glass has its AGM tomorrow. We’ll be there. Expecting to see some action regarding Masfen and co’s takeover bid.
RBA cash rate decision on Tues. We’re still thinking another hike “should happen” but wondering if the RBA will keep the cash rate the same and raise later. We still think a terminal cash rate of 4.6% is likely.
New Zealand
- Noting Mainfreight director Don Braid paid an average price of $67.77 per share for an additional 10,000 shares in Mainfreight. The stock has had some weakness since reporting gloomier-than-expecting results.
- Air NZ released its June update, noting passenger volume up +22% YoY (still -7% on a pre-Covid stack, so some more room to move).
Noting Ben Cook is selling off +$100mn of NZ assets, including a lot of cornerstone retail assets. Interested to see what the assets sell for — it will create some more transactional evidence on the current value of assets held by the REITs. Still prefer Oceania as real estate exposure with the added benefit of a retirement operator. We think most discounts to NTA at the REITs price in most of the data.
Aus
- ABS June retail sales were weak, +2.3% y/y, with fashion, household goods and other retail all down, while food remains resilient. Private label goods up +10% suggesting consumers are preferring “value” options.
Macquarie-managed The Infrastructure Fund has ordered a strategic review of its 7.19% stake in Perth Airport as it looks to take profits after the airport returned to pre-pandemic passenger volumes in February.). What’s the read-through for AIA? Airports trading at “peak” value?
Red, red wine: the Chateau Lafite index – note the last print – £6.6k from £8k at the start of the year |