Good Evening,

Welcome to Equity Espresso’s Daily Recap. 

Three positive days in a row for the Aussie market, with the ASX 200 index gaining another 38.3 pts. or 0.51% today, to close the day at 7,514.90. Gains were steady across the major sectors, with Health Care (+1.02%) the best performer, as CSL (+0.97%), Cochlear (+1.01%) and Resmed (+1.13%) all closed higher. Financials (+0.75%) and Staples (+0.71%) were other sectors that also moved higher. Discretionary (-0.35%) fell the most today after being the sector leader on Monday.

Judo Bank shares were one of the big movers today, rising 16.8% to $1.09 after posting a 24% jump in profit before tax of $67 million for the first half of FY24. Continued above-system lending growth, strong net interest margins, and minimal write-offs drove the positive result. IDP Education dropped 5.9% to $20.77 after Canada announced changes to its intake of international students, which could affect the company’s volumes.

It was another busy day for miners and energy companies. Karoon Energy fell 4% to $1.789 after lowering its Brazil production guidance for 2024 to 7.2 million to 9 million barrels, compared to the previous range of 8 million to 10 million. Coronado Global Resources rose 3.1% to $1.68 after the December quarter ended with higher run-of-mine coal production. Viva Energy slid 0.3% to $3.33 after booking a gross refinery margin of $US8.8 a barrel in the December quarter.

Wall Street

The S&P 500 (+0.22%) posted a second straight record high on Monday as Tech stocks continued to add to their recent gains, with investors eagerly awaiting the upcoming quarterly reporting season to get a guide of this year's profit outlook. Some of the companies set to report earnings this week include Netflix, Tesla, Abbott Laboratories, Intel and Johnson & Johnson.

The Dow Jones rose 138.01 points, or 0.36%, to 38,001.8, and the NASDAQ added 49.32 points, or 0.32%, to 15,360.3. In company news, Archer-Daniels-Midland shares dropped 24.2% after the company placed its CFO on administrative leave for an investigation and cut its full-year profit forecast. Gilead fell 10.2% after it said its drug, Trodelvy, failed to significantly improve survival for previously treated patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in a late-stage study.

Economic Data

• Australia's NAB Business Confidence Index bounced back to -1 in December 2023 from -8 in November. This was the third straight month of negative readings but the softest figure in the sequence.

• As expected, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.1%.

Sponsor

This AI Startup Investment is Winning

RAD AI has developed technology that transforms the $633B MarTech industry. Its award-winning AI tells brands who their customer is and how to best create content for them. 

Investors are taking notice, here’s why: 

1) $27M raised from 6,000+ investors, including VCs, execs at Google and Amazon. Backed by Adobe Fund for Design.

2) Dubbed “essential AI” for brands looking to attract new audiences and boost ROI. 

3) 3X revenue growth, clients include Hasbro, Sweetgreen, MGM and more.

83% Subscribed, Invest Before Feb. 16th, Closing Soon.

Disclosure: This is a paid advertisement for RAD AI’s Regulation CF offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.radintel.ai 

Quick Singles

🪃 Local News

• Australians lost over $24 million to employment scams in 2023 – an increase of over $15 million from 2022. Younger Australians have been affected by employment scams, such as scam ads promoting ‘side hustles’.

• Australia has paused applications for individuals who invest more than $5 million into the country as part of a broader immigration policy overhaul designed to entice more skilled migrants.

• Optus said that during its national outage of phone and internet services, 2697 of its customers could not connect to emergency services after dialling 000. This number is more than ten times the amount previously revealed to a Senate inquiry. In November, former Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin stated during a Senate hearing that 228 triple-zero calls by Optus customers failed during a 14-hour outage on November 8th.

🌎️ Around The Globe

• Zee Entertainment's shares fell by 10% on Tuesday - their biggest one-day drop since April 2021, after Sony India scrapped a $10 billion merger with the Indian broadcaster.

• Tencent Holdings-owned Riot Games plans to lay off 530 employees, or about 11% of its staff globally. The layoffs will impact staff most outside its core development team.

• Wayfair is set to lay off 1,650 employees, or around 13% of its workforce. This marks the third restructuring the company has conducted since 2022 and is expected to save about $280 million annually.

• JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines will appeal a federal court ruling that blocked their $3.8 billion merger proposal.

• Ford will reduce the production of its F-150 Lightning pickup truck as demand for electric vehicles (EVs) has been lower than expected. Ford told suppliers in December that it planned to produce about 1,600 F-150 Lightning EV trucks per week starting in January, roughly half of the 3,200 it previously had planned.

• Microsoft has said that a Russian intelligence group, Nobelium, accessed some of the software maker’s top executives’ email accounts.

• Open AI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly seeking billions of dollars in capital to establish a network of AI chip fabricators. This project aims to finance the construction and operation of multiple chip factories worldwide to meet the increasing demand for neural network accelerators.

• The German chemical industry is starting to feel the effects of delayed shipments from the Red Sea, with Asian imports of car parts, engineering equipment, chemicals and toys taking longer to arrive than usual.

• The European Union's drug regulator will this week consider widening the use of Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drug Wegovy to include reducing the risk of strokes and heart attacks.

Markets

ASX Company Movers

Commodity Prices

Bond Prices

ETF Watch

Newsletter Recommendation

One-click subscribe 

A Little Extra

📉 Going Down?

Top-10 shorted stocks on the ASX - as of January 17

👨‍💼 Director Transactions

What are the insiders doing? (On-market trade only)

DISCLAIMER: None of the information provided in this newsletter should be constituted as financial advice. This newsletter is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be taken as investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell assets or make financial decisions. Please do your research.