ASX 200 afternoon report: 13 February 2024

The ASX 200 trades 8 points (-0.11%) lower at 7606 at 2.45 pm AEDT.

The ASX 200 is trading modestly lower on the day, ahead of tonight's all-important US CPI release. While the price action at an index level was subdued, under the hood, earnings season, as is usually the way, managed to throw up a few surprises.

Bio-tech behemoth CSL, which fell 4.84% yesterday after its phase three trial for cardiovascular medication AEGIS-II had "come up short", fell 3.1% today to $281.36 despite reporting a 10% increase in half-year underlying earnings. CSL's share price has come a long way from the October $228.65 low, and last week ran into weekly downtrend resistance at $306, from the February 2020 $342.75 high.

Building materials company James Hardie, whose share price gained over 113% last year, reported a 14% increase in net sales in Q3 to US$978.3 million. However, a mixed outlook on housing for Q4 saw its share price fall 5.81% to $55.78.

Appliance manufacture Breville Group's share price fell 10.96% to $24.32 after its profit fell short of expectations. The company offered downbeat guidance and noted, "macroeconomic and mean reversion headwinds are expected to continue through the second half."

Today’s market movement

Consumer discretionary stocks

The Westpac Consumer Sentiment index rose 6.2% today to a twenty-month high of 86 in February, as talk of interest rate cuts from the RBA gained traction. Good news for consumer discretionary stocks.

• Adairs: + 3.49% to $1.92
• Nick Scali: + 2.42% to $15.63
• Kogan: + 2% to $6.19
• JB Hi-Fi: + over 7% for a second consecutive day to $64.95

Banking sector

• NAB: + 0.89% to $32.94
• CBA: + 0.85% to $116.72
• ANZ: + 0.91% to $28.30
• Westpac: + 0.5% to $24.62
• Macquarie bucked the trend after a disappointing Q3 trading update saw it fall 1.35% to $185.62

Mining sector

The big miners have struggled for direction with much of Asia still out for China's Lunar New Year holidays.

• BHP: + 0.42% to $46.26
• Whitehaven Coal: + 0.33% to $7.53
• Rio Tinto: + 0.23% to $129.25
• Fortescue: -0.56% to $28.32
• Yancoal: -1.14% to $5.65

ASX 200 technical analysis

While the ASX 200 maintains altitude above horizontal support at 7570, we look for the ASX 200 to trade towards 7900. Aware that if the ASX 200 were to lose support at 7570 on a sustained basis, it would warn that the recent up move was a false break higher and consign the ASX 200 to another round of range trading.

ASX 200 daily chart

• ^{Source: Tradingview. The figures stated are as of 13 February 2024. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. This report does not contain and is not to be taken as containing any financial product advice or financial product recommendation.}