Pre-Market Report – Tuesday 20 May: US markets bounce back from downgrade | RBA Day

Wall Street recorded a flat session following Moody’s downgrade of the US’s credit rating after market close on Friday. US indices dropped at open but recovered by the end of session. S&P 500 up 0.09%, NASDAQ up 0.02%. Dow up 137 points. Ended near high. Mostly positive sector performance. Healthcare best performing sector. Novarax (+15%) boosted sector as received FDA approval for Covid vaccine. Utilities second best performer. Other defensives did well too. Materials and Industrials both up. Energy worst performing sector by over 1%. Moody’s downgrade renewed global growth concerns. Cyclicals also showing weakness. Tesla (-2.3%) dragged sector down. Barron’s report from over weekend showed Chinese sales fell about 25% in April and first half of May. Market reacted negatively to AMD (-2.1%) selling recently acquired ZT Systems’ server-manufacturing business to Sanmina for $3Bn. Microsoft up 1.0% after offering its data centres to various AI companies while announcing new AI tool for coding. Resources mixed. Weaker dollar benefitted oil, copper, tin. But many base metals fell on weak Chinese data. Iron ore, Aluminium both down.

ASX to rise. SPI futures up 73 points (+0.88%).

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