A soft night on commodity markets weighed on Australian shares this morning before the big banks led a partial recovery.
The ASX 200 lost as much as 43 points in early action but trimmed its loss to 25 points or 0.4% at 6000 as the heavyweight financial sector put on 0.3%. Other pockets of strength included IT +0.9% and consumer staples +0.4%. Overnight declines in crude, iron ore and gold contributed to falls in the energy sector -1.5%, metals & mining -1.3% and gold -0.5%.
Other markets around the region were mixed but little changed. China's Shanghai Composite eased 0.26% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.15%. Japan's Nikkei edged up 0.1%.
Tech stocks steered Wall Street higher overnight. The S&P 500 rallied 0.45% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 0.69% to an all-time closing high. S&P 500 futures were recently off 2.25 points or 0.08%.
Crude oil futures rebounded 34 cents or 0.53% this morning to US$65.09 a barrel. Gold futures drifted down $1.60 or 0.12% to US$1,295.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying 76.32 US cents.
Those nice long candle tails on the last three red XJO sessions (including today) imply a market that is keen to go higher once conditions are right. Fingers crossed. Trading: a bit of action at last. The opening plunge in AGY offered a cheap entry, though I needed two buys to secure a decent profit. Also skimmed half a pip out of AVZ. Makes up for yesterday's blank.
