24 March 2025 | Weekly Snapshot

Did you know?

The 2024 defense budget for the USA was approx. US$968B, which dwarfs China’s, which is $235B. An astounding difference.

Market Movements

The Australian market was higher by 1% last week led by Consumer Staples (up 2.4%) and Financials (up 1.4%). Australia’s labour force data showed jobs unexpectedly declined by 52.8K and a big miss on the 30K increase expected. It was largely due to a sharp fall in participation rate to 66.8% from 67.3%. The unemployment rate held steady 4.1%. The A$ fell below $0.63 on the news.

In the USA, the S&P500 was lower by 0.1% led by Industrials (down 0.8%) and info tech (down 0.2%). FedEx shares fell 11% after the parcel delivery firm cut its forecasts, fanning worries about the health of U.S. manufacturing amid uncertainty from the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs on trading partners. FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam warned that the company was navigating a challenging market and that weakness in the industrial economy was weighing on its higher-margin business-to-business volumes.

China announced their long-awaited measures to boost incomes and consumption outlining an 8-point plan with a clearer need to rebalance their economy away from its heavy reliance on manufacturing exports.

Portfolio Movements

ACCC releases report into grocery price gouging, Coles/Woolies shares higher

• The ACCC’s 12-month inquiry into Australia major grocery chains has not supported those claims that price gouging is to blame for the inflationary cost-of-living crisis.
• When inflation surged following the pandemic responses , politicians were quick to blame supermarkets.
• Over the past five years, the ACCC found that grocery prices have risen by 24% compared to 22% for other goods and services, largely the same and less than the increase in supermarket prices in most other developed economies.
• Both Coles and Woolies were higher by approx. 5% last week

James Hardie and AZEK to combine, creating a leading building products platform

• Leading ASX-listed US building materials company James Hardie has announced they will acquire the AZEK company (NYSE: AZEK) for a combination of cash and James Hardie shares with a total transaction value of $8.75 billion.
• AZEK shareholders will receive $26.45 in cash and 1.0340 ordinary shares of James Hardie to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange for each AZEK share for a stock and cash consideration of $56.88, a 26% premium to the recent price.
• The combination of James Hardie and AZEK will create a leading exterior and outdoor living building products that span siding, exterior trim, decking, railing and pergolas. The combined company will offer a comprehensive and innovative material replacement solution to homeowners, customers, and contractors.

Adobe announces new offerings with AWS and Amazon

• Adobe announced a strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build new offerings that empower marketing and creative teams to deliver customer experiences with greater speed, precision and scale.
• Building on the availability of Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) on AWS, the collaboration will introduce new integrations with AWS’s generative AI services, Amazon Connect and Amazon Ads. These offerings will enable organizations to create more meaningful customer interactions while benefiting from AWS’s enterprise-grade security, reliability and global infrastructure.
• “New integrations across Adobe and Amazon solutions will enable businesses to deliver impactful customer experiences that leverage deep data insights, while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and security.” The company said.

The Week Ahead

• Monday 24: S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI for March expected to be 51.8, down from 52.7, S&P Global Services PMI expected to be 51.0 for March, no change from February and the S&P Global US Composite PMI is expected to be 51.3 in March v 51.6.
• Wednesday 26: USA New Home Sales are expected to be 680k for February compared with 657k in January. United Kingdom CPI MoM expected to be 0.5% in February compared to -0.1% in January, CPI YoY expected to be 2.9% in February compared to prior reading of 3.0% while the Core CPI YoY is expected to show inflation running at 3.6% compared with the 3.7% reading the month earlier. Australia CPI YoY expected to be 2.5% for February, no change from January.
• Thursday 27: USA: the Core PCE Price Index QoQ is expected to remain unchanged for the fourth quarter at 2.4% and Initial Jobless Claims are expected to be 225k compared with 223k the previous week.