Chinese slowdown hurts Aus stocks: Afternoon market insights

Australian Stock Market (ASX)

The Australian market was down slightly today after further signs the Chinese economy is slowing. The equities market finished flat or lower, with miners in the red.

Adrian Mowat, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief Asian and emerging-market strategist, spoke at a conference in Singapore yesterday.

“If you look at the Chinese data, you should stop debating about a hard landing,” Mowat says according to Bloomberg. “China is in a hard landing. Car sales are down; cement production is down; steel production is down; construction stocks are down. It’s not a debate anymore, it’s a fact.”

The S&P/ASX200 was down by 0.22% or 9.4 points to 4277.80. The All Ordinaries Index was also down 0.20% or 8.7 points to 4366.90.

The day’s winners

Budget internet provider, TPG Telecom (ASX: TPM), was up 4.15% to $1.63 at 3.50pm today, continuing a trend of gains for the last three months.

Carsales.com (ASX: CRZ) was up 3.22 % to $5.45 on the back of a 20% profit improvement, announced last month.

The day’s losers

Dart Energy (ASX: DTE) was down 5.48% to $0.345, continuing a long decline in its share price since April. Dart, headquartered in Singapore, is a coal seam gas miner operating in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Europe and the United Kingdom. They are currently in the process of raising capital in the UK.

Ramelius Resources (ASX: RMS) was down 6.84% to $0.885. Ramelius has two gold mines in Western Australia–as well as exploration projects operating all over Australia. The gold price has suffered in the face of good economic news over the last few days.

Sector movers

The biggest sector winner was the S&P/ASX 200 Utilities (Sector) index which rose 1.18% or 20.8 points to 533.80.

The weakest sector was the All Ordinaries Gold (sub industry) which was down again today 3.49% or 226.7 points to 6278.0 after falling yesterday on the back of lower gold prices.

Currency

The Australian dollar was softer again today after its falls overnight. One Australian dollar was buying $US 1.0461 this afternoon at 3.40pm.

Asian markets

Japan – NIKKEI 225 was up 0.62% or 62.07 points to 10112.60.

Hong Kong – Hang Seng was flat, down 0.11% or 23.53 points to 21284.40.

Several Japanese stocks rose after the yen devalued against the US dollar boosting the NIKKEI in Tokyo.

“The U.S. still seems to be slowly but surely improving, and that’s definitely improving the mood of investors and forcing them to focus on taking more risk to capture what looks to be an improving outlook,” says Tim Schroeders from Pengana Capital in Melbourne, which manages $1 billion in equities. “Perhaps we are seeing a sustained devaluation of the yen, which would improve the outlook for Japanese exporters in particular,” reported Bloomberg today.