Afternoon trading January 30

Thanks @shovel40, @Fiji1 and morning crew. Shout-out to @Patterns. Hope there's a fix for your laptop problems soon. Come back - we need you!

Half-time wrap:

The share market drew briefly within three points of a record after megacap tech stocks helped Wall Street break to fresh highs.

The ASX 200 reached 7630.5 before paring its advance to 7607, a gain of 29 points or 0.37%. The index's previous intraday peak was 7,632.8 on August 13, 2021.

As on Wall Street, the tech sector set the pace, rising 1.563%. Other notable gains included miners, healthcare providers and REITs.

Retail sales contracted last month as shoppers brought forward more of their festive buying into November to take advantage of Black Friday sales. December sales shrank 2.7% following a strong bounce the previous month.

The S&P 500 rallied to a new high overnight as investors showed little fear ahead of this week's Federal Reserve policy meeting, employment data and trading updates from most of the index heavyweights. The S&P 500 gained 0.76%.


Personal trading: Nothing as yet. Always find the quarterly reporting season tricky. Too many fundamentals interfering with technical set-ups, lol.