Advanced Share Registry : Market News 22 Jan 2021

Outperformance from the FAANG gang delivered the markets bang as collective hands rub together in anticipation of more tech earnings out next week. I.E. Facebook 2.04% Apple3.81%, Amazon 1.53%, Netflix and Google0.68%. The S&P 500 nailed a new intraday record for the country's shiny old president who also had the best inauguration day Nasdaq performance since Ronald Reagan took office in 1985.

While there's no doubt about the profitability of those tech leaders, the rest of the market is another story. It's a startling realisation that earnings per share have been unchanged since 2008 and prices have doubled simply because multiples have doubled. It sounds like sleight of one hand-clapping, but it's true. Encouraged by the collapse in global bond yields and explosive growth in money supply this new normal has persevered with gusto. As, we've seen in this pandemic, if the economies' performance is sorrowful, it doesn't matter. Many young traders wouldn't even know that strong stock performance generally required profitability pre-GFC. In other fun facts that are mere curios now, broad equity benchmarks are 16% above the 200-day moving average, or double bull market averages. The S&P 500 is also 22.8 times forward earnings, a level last seen in the 2000 dotcom bubble. Time will tell if this context carries weight again but for now it's an intriguing talking point.

Housing data continued its role as the leading reflation story with muscular numbers for December that showed new projects swell 5.8 per cent from the prior month. New jobless claims declined marginally from the preceding week but still, a massive 900,000 PLUS ten months into this pandemic.

It's now a year since America recorded its first Covid case from a traveller returned from Wuhan, seeking urgent treatment at a Seattle clinic. Finally, a president has revealed a comfortingly comprehensive plan to deliver 100 million vaccines doses in Bidens first 100 days. On his first day, fifteen executive orders appeared that outlined a momentous task, including deploying the Defence Production Act to ramp up protective equipment production. The vaccine rollout will receive added local, and state funding and FEMA will build 100 community vaccination centres. Biden also wants masks mandatory in all Federal buildings, airports, planes, intercity buses, and other transportation modes. Amazon stepped up to offer Biden the use of its massive infrastructure's operations to rollout those 100 million shots while getting its extensive workforce inoculated. Maybe he's hoping to soften the blow of inevitable tax hikes for Corporate America.

Hopes are high for trial results at the end of this month from Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine that won't require super-cold temperature storage. A logistical friendly solution like that could literally make a world of difference, especially for the number one economy now carrying 24.4 million confirmed cases and more than 406,000 known deaths. The USA's fresh fight arrives as record global fatalities also emerge every day.

Dow Jones	31176.01	-12.37	0.0%
US S&P500	3853.07	+1.22	0.0%
US Nasdaq	13530.92	+73.667	+0.6%
UK FTSE	6715.42	-24.97	-0.4%
German Dax	13906.67	-14.7	-0.1%
Gold Futures ($US/oz)	1865.90	-0.60	0.0%
Spot Iron Ore ($US/t)	170.55	+1.65	+1.0%

Europe's STOXX 600 also hit 11-month highs and also ended flatter. Tech led too, with a 1.6% gain while pandemic concerns saw oil slip 1.3%. In Britain, the National Health Service scrambled for solutions with a wartime effort - converting London buses into makeshift ambulances. Staffed by intensive care physicians and nurses, four COVID patients can be transported at once to ease the pandemic's strain on London ambulance services. Regretful outlier Sweden has a coronavirus situation in the country that 'remains serious,' according to Prime Minister Stefan Lofven. He's now has extended a ban on serving alcohol at restaurants and passed laws that can shutter businesses and fine citizens that don't comply with temporary restrictions-a far cry from their laissez-faire experiment at the beginnings of the pandemic. Aussie markets are flat to soft in the futures market as copper makes Chinas hit list of banned Australian products. Producers say plenty of other markets can absorb our red metal exports with ease.

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