The S&P/ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) won’t be going anywhere on Tuesday with the ASX closed for the national public holiday. Here’s what’s happening across the market in this shortened week.
ASX 200 finishes higher, PointsBet attracts star power
The ASX 200 finished 0.4% higher on Monday on very light volume, with most participants clearly opting for a long weekend. The consumer and IT sectors continued to outperform behind the likes of Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P) and Kogan.com Ltd (ASX: KGN), which finished 2.6% and 3.8% higher, respectively.
Despite the approval of the Pfizer vaccine in Australia, both Flight Centre Travel Group Ltd (ASX: FLT) and Webjet Limited (ASX: WEB) fell more than 3% as the Australia-New Zealand travel bubble was put on hold after another local transmission of the so-called South African COVID-19 strain.
Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX: FMG) continued its strong run, adding 4.0% ahead of its trading update on Thursday and following Andrew Forrest’s well-publicised speech last week.
Up and coming sports gambling operator PointsBet Holdings Ltd (ASX: PBH) jumped 0.6% after announcing the well-known Shaquille O’Neal as the next Brand Ambassador for Australia, the company continuing to seek world domination.
Youfoodz share price recovers lost ground, Tyro provides update
After falling 33% from its listing price, meal kit producer Youfoodz Holdings Ltd (ASX: YFZ) reaffirmed prospectus guidance, highlighting how much it was benefitting from the stay-at-home trend. Revenue for the final quarter of 2020 increased by 25.4% to $36.7 million, with second-half revenue up 15.6% to $73.6 million in total. The update was solid enough to send the Youfoodz share price 16.1% higher.
Tyro Payments Ltd (ASX: TYR) appears to have overcome its well-publicised outages, with January sales to date up 10% to $1.41 billion compared to 2020 levels, which follows a 19% increase in December. Tyro shares finished the day 1.2% lower.
US tech stocks rise ahead of earnings
US markets rallied despite expectations that fiscal stimulus may now be pushed back until mid-March, the Nasdaq adding 0.7% and the S&P 500 0.4%.
Investors are clearly positioning ahead of quarterly earnings results from the likes of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) representing 65% of the S&P 500’s market capitalisation, which are due on Thursday and Friday Australian time.
European markets fell with the French Government once again considering nationwide lockdowns, highlighting the difficulty and reliance that now stands on vaccines being rolled out appropriately.
An insight into ‘modern day’ trading comes in the form of GameStop (NYSE: GME), a video game retailer whose share price doubled before finishing just 18% higher in a single session. It has become a hunting ground of both short sellers and speculative day traders.
