US stock markets made another surge on Thursday (13/07/23), with the Nasdaq leading a gain of more than 1% for the second consecutive day, as data showed that US producer-level inflation has reached its lowest point in almost 3 years. US PPI (Jun) was released at 0.1% on both an annual and monthly basis, even on a year-on-year basis much lower than the forecast of 0.4% and 0.9% from the previous month. On the other hand, weekly jobless claims actually fell more than expected for last week where the figure came out at 237k, lower than the 250k increase expected and also from 249k in the previous week. This suggests that the labor market is still too heated for the Fed to stop raising interest rates. Nevertheless, the focus of market participants turns to monitoring the US earnings season which is about to begin, with the performance announcements of a number of major US banks due on Friday. From the East, South Korea announced their benchmark interest rate decision to be held at 3.5%. While China is still struggling with lower-than-expected Export & Import growth, making their Trade Balance (June) grow less than expected, only able to produce a surplus of USD70.62 billion, lower than the estimate of USD74.8 billion; although already higher than May at USD65.81 billion. Indonesia also reported weak Auto Sales (June) at 4.7%, a huge drop from May’s 65.2% growth. The West also reported that their economies were not faring any better, with the UK reporting a decline in economic growth (May) to negative 0.4%, compared to the previous month’s positive 0.5%. Industrial Production (May) also fell to -2.3% yoy (vs -1.6% in April) and Manufacturing Production (May) further increased negative growth to -1.2% yoy compared to -0.6% in April. The UK Trade Balance widened the deficit to GBP18.72 billion, instead of narrowing the deficit to GBP14.7 billion as expected. Good news emerging from another European country, France reported Inflation rate (June) eased to 4.5% yoy, compared to May at 5.1%. But overall, Industrial Production for all Euro Zone countries did record a weakening in May at -2.2% yoy compared to the previous month’s slight positive 0.2%. Closing this week, the Euro zone will report Trade Balance (May) which is expected to narrow the deficit to EUR7.6 billion from EUR11.7 billion in the previous month. Meanwhile, the US will announce Consumer Expectation & Sentiment as well as views on the future economic situation & Inflation from the Univ. of Michigan tonight at around 21:00 WIB.
JCI indeed closed higher again, although it was a slight +2points but still maintaining a position above the 6800 level, where foreigners sold their Indonesian stock portfolio by almost IDR192 billion, but for the weekly position their coffers are still safe at IDR793.37 billion. Technically, the almost Doji-like candle that occurred at the new 6800s level might be a sign of consolidation for a while at the end of the week, but it is possible that the bullish stance of the past few days will still prevail. NHKSI RESEARCH advises investors to maintain a gradual Buy position to be safe.
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