Daytrading April 11 afternoon

Thanks Lioness and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Downbeat US equity futures helped push the ASX lower before a partial recovery as Chinese shares rallied.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was two points or less than 0.1% weaker at 4935 but on the rise after hitting a session low of 4911. The biggest drags on the index were consumer staples -1.3%, consumer discretionary -1.1% and health -0.9%. The energy sector jumped 1.8%, gold 3.3% and metals & mining 1.5%.

Crude oil surged 8% last week and briefly traded above US$40 a barrel this morning amid optimism about an OPEC meeting this weekend. However, analysts warned of the possibility that expectations will be disappointed.

“Movements in oil prices seem to matter an awful lot for the direction and sentiment in financial markets at present,” Con Williams, agricultural economist at ANZ Bank New Zealand, told Bloomberg. “It seems to us the likelihood of any agreement being reached on April 17 to curb production is very low. This leaves a lot of event risk in oil markets, which could recoil quickly. What ultimately needs to be watched is the fundamentals, and in this regard they are slowly improving.”

US equity futures threatened a downbeat start to the trading week following Wall Street's worst week since February. Dow futures were recently off 21 points or 0.12%. A mixed morning in Asia saw China's Shanghai Composite jump 2.07% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.49%, while Japan's Nikkei slid 1.28%.

Crude oil futures were last up 23 cents or 0.6% this morning at US$39.95 a barrel. Gold futures were $9.40 or 0.8% stronger at US$1,253.40 an ounce. The dollar was buying 75.6 US cents.


Trading: plenty of movement down at the bleeding edge of the market. Missed SGH but nailed AVQ, NWH and BKL. Also took AWC, which stalled near break-even, got a part-fill in the GMM retrace.