SHARE PRICES AND MARKET ANALYSIS

A snapshot of motorcycle and ATV industry share performance across key manufacturers and major global markets at the trading week closure on Friday 6 September 2024. BDN financial editor Roger Willis reports.

USA — ECONOMIC FEAR RETURNS

Barely a month after their last panic attack, American investors ran for cover again, as US stocks tumbled following weaker than forecast payrolls data revived concerns of an economic slowdown. Top US Federal Reserve officials added to the cautious mood with comments that left the door open for imminent half-point interest rate cuts, to prop up the flagging economy.

Wall Street market indices reflected this grief with some heavy hammerings. NASDAQ’s tech-heavy Composite and the S&P MidCap 400 fared worst, ending the week respectively 5.8% and 4.9% in arrears. Blue-chip S&P 500 stocks sank by 4.2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 2.9% down.

Powered two-wheeler listings, spread over S&P’s MidCap and NASDAQ, almost all racked up losses. The sole exception was Energica parent Ideanomics, which partially recovered from recent severe regulatory woes — albeit from a pathetically low base.

EUROPE — TRANSATLANTIC TROUBLES

European stock markets quickly became volatile, reacting to worrying news from New York. Key continental indices had all turned profoundly negative by close of play on Friday. In the Teutonic arena, Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax and the Wiener Börse ATX incurred respective 3.2% and 4% losses. Motorcycle-related stocks in both Germany and Austria — BMW, Ducati owner Volkswagen and KTM parent Pierer Mobility — declined in value. The FTSE MIB in Milan retreated by 3.1%, drop almost exactly matched by Italian scooter giant Piaggio.

JAPAN — DEFAULT SETTING

Falling back on taking its cues from whatever is happening in America, Tokyo and Osaka’s Nikkei 225 index plunged by 5.8%. Japanese investors had begun to behave like sheep. Without any solid reasoning, sell-offs hit the share prices of all four indigenous brands associated to motorcycle manufacturing.

INDIA — EASILY SPOOKED

With geo-political and economic issues elsewhere flashing up on their screens, Indian punters abandoned optimism in the previous week and started to cash in their chips, knocking Mumbai stock indices accordingly. S&P’s BSE Sensex 30 and the National Stock Exchange Nifty 50 respectively fell by 1.4% and 1.5%. Among India’s five major motorcycle manufacturers, only market leader Hero MotoCorp avoided this knee-jerk trend, thanks to its coincidental release of really strong Q1 financial results.

CHINA — STAR-SPANGLED ENEMY

Other deleterious news from the USA impinged on already-weak Chinese business confidence. As this autumn’s American presidential election campaigns hot up, it has become clear that both Democrat and Republican candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in favour of strengthening punitive tariff walls against China.

Hardly surprising, then, that Shanghai’s SSE Composite and the Shanghai/Shenzhen blue-chip CSI 300 indices dropped in unison by 2.7%. Share prices of six of China’s ten listed motorcycle producers were among the losers.