Morgans AM: Monday, 28 August 2023

US equity markets advanced after searching for direction earlier in last Friday’s (25 August) session as investors awaited Federal Chair Jerome Powell’s address in Jackson Hole - Dow rose +247-points or +0.73%, having rallied over >300-points at its session peak. Boeing Co (up +2.81%) was the leading Dow component on Friday (25 August) after Bloomberg reported that the that two aircraft slated for China have been taken out of storage and readied for delivery. The report, which cited people familiar with the matter, said that the handovers are expected “within weeks.” The broader S&P500 gained +0.67%, with Consumer Discretionary (up +1.10%) and Energy (+1.07%) climbing over >1% to lead all eleven primary sectors higher. The Nasdaq rose +0.94%. Apple Inc rose +1.26% ahead of the company contesting a US$2B mass lawsuit at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal on Tuesday night AEST (29 August) in which the tech company is accused of hiding defective batteries in millions of iPhones by “throttling” them with software updates. However, Nvidia Corp fell -2.43% as some of the exuberance following the chipmaker’s strong second quarter result last week The small capitalisation Russell 2000 added +0.40%.