Morgans AM: Friday, 7 January 2022

Morgans Financial Limited

US equity markets retreated after a choppy session as investors continued to rotate out of technology stocks - Dow down -171-points or -0.47%. The broader S&P500 slipped -0.10%, with Materials (down -1.24%), Health Care (-1.21%) and Utilities (-1.05%) all falling over >1 and leading six of the eleven primary sectors lower. Energy (up +2.29%) sat atop the primary sector leaderboard overnight, with Financials (+1.55%) also trading strongly. T-Mobile US fell over >1.5% in extended trading after reporting fourth-quarter postpaid phone net additions - a closely watched metric for wireless companies - came in at 844K, lower than the consensus Wall Street analysts’ average forecast for ~868K. The technology-centric Nasdaq dipped-0.13%, relinquishing a modest bounce in the closing minutes of the session. Apple Inc lost -1.67%, Amazon.com Inc -0.67%, and Google-parent Alphabet Inc -0.07%. However, Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc) gained +2.56% The small capitalisation Russell 2000 added +0.56% after falling -3.30% in the previous session. James Hardie Industries Plc fell -4.31% after announcing it has fired Jack Truong as chief executive for code-of-conduct violations and appointed director Harold Wiens as interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The building materials supplier also raised its fiscal-year profit expectations, in part because of strong expectations for growth in the U.S. homebuilding market. The company now expects adjusted net income for its fiscal year through March, 2022, to be between US$605M and US$625M, an increase on earlier guidance of between US$580M and US$600M.