Daytrading Nov 27 pre-market

Morning traders. Thanks Shants and after-market regulars.

Market wrap:

Australian stocks look set for a flat open as multi-year lows in iron ore, oil and the dollar offset solid gains in US shares ahead of tonight's Thanksgiving public holiday.

The December SPI 200 futures contract ended the night session unchanged at 5407 as iron ore plumbed a fresh five-year low and oil and the Aussie dollar marked four-year lows.

Wall Street shrugged off declines in resource stocks and mildly disappointing economic data, closing a tight, range-bound session at record levels. The S&P 500 rallied six points or 0.29% with tech stocks and telecoms doing most of the heavy lifting. The tech-heavy Nasdaq continued its recent impressive run with a gain of 29 points or 0.6%. The Dow was the weakest of the major indexes, rising just 13 points or 0.07%.

The S&P 500 traded in an unusually narrow four-point range before breaking out in the final minutes to close near its intraday high. The market is closed tonight for Thanksgiving and re-opens on Friday for a shortened session that ends at 1pm.

“It looks like investors are more worried about holiday travels than about economic data," Eric Wiegand, senior portfolio manager at US Bank Wealth Management, told MarketWatch. "The US economy is muddling through, but it is still doing better than our biggest European and Asian trading partners.”

A deluge of data released overnight produced more misses than hits, but traders were cheered by a seven-and-a-half-year high in consumer confidence heading into the Christmas shopping season. Other reports showed weekly jobless claims climbed to a three-month high; durable goods orders improved less than expected last month; pending home sales declined 1.1%, but new home sales lifted 0.7%; the Chicago PMI eased; and consumer spending picked up.

"Momentum is weakening in the fourth quarter. While there is no reason to be pessimistic, it curbs some of the enthusiasm we had seen after the strong growth of the past two quarters," Thomas Costerg, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in the US, told Reuters.

Energy companies were once again the worst of the sectors amid low expectations that tonight's OPEC cartel meeting will produce any meaningful cuts to oil production. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister told reporters he was not looking for a reduction in production targets. West Texas Intermediate crude oil for delivery in January fell 40 cents to settle at US$73.69 a barrel, a new four-year closing low. The contract was last trading at US$73.52.

Iron ore pushed further below US$70 a tonne overnight, with the spot price ending 60 cents lower at US$68 a dry tonne. Nonetheless, BHP rose 0.27% and Rio Tinto 0.89% in US trade.

A flat night on precious metals markets saw US gold stocks drift backwards. The NYSE Arca Gold Bugs index lost 1.5%. Gold for December delivery dipped 50 cents or less than 0.1% to settle at US$1,196.60 an ounce

Copper hit a three-week low in London but recovered in US trade despite concerns about soft home sales and consumer spending. In London, copper fell 0.6% and nickel 1.1%. Aluminium added 0.6%, lead 0.5%, tin 0.4% and zinc 0.1%. US copper for December delivery was recently up 0.2% or almost a cent at US$2.96 a pound.

Early gains in Europe fizzled away by the close following three days of solid gains. The Stoxx Europe 600 closed flat as Germany's DAX rose 0.56%, France's CAC lost 0.21% and Britain's FTSE eased 0.03%.

The dollar slumped to a new four-year low overnight before paring its fall. The Aussie reached 84.8 US cents, the weakest level since July 2010, and was lately buying 85.5 US cents. Read more here.

TRADING THEMES TODAY

SONG REMAINS THE SAME: No real change in the recent overnight themes - positive lead from Wall Street, negative lead from commodity markets. However, it's worth noting that this week's ASX performance has included a higher low and a higher high despite the negativity surrounding iron ore, copper and oil. That suggests the market might have put in a short-term low last week and could improve from here. Unfortunately, US holidays are real market dampeners, so we're unlikely to move far over the next two sessions unless OPEC springs a surprise tonight.  

ECONOMIC NEWS: Quarterly private-capital expenditure numbers are due at 11.30am EST. Housing sales data are also due today, exact time uncertain. With Wall Street closed for Thanksgiving, the OPEC meeting in Vienna is tonight's main interest.

Good luck to all.