Thanks Mitta and morning crew. We're on the home stretch. Enjoy...

Thanks Mitta and morning crew. We're on the home stretch. Enjoy the Easter break, one and all.


Half-time round-up:

Shares slid to a two-week low this morning after overnight weakness in commodity prices was compounded by concerns about bad debts in the banking sector after ANZ warned of a blow-out.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 64 points or 1.25% lower at 5078 and on track for its third loss of the holiday-shortened trading week. A retreat to safety saw gains in health +1.4%, utilities +1.2% and industrials +0.7% dwarfed by heavy falls in metals & mining -3.5%, gold -3.7% and financials -3%. ANZ shares tumbled more than 5% after the bank announced a surge in bad debts relating to the mining sector.

"This ANZ release suggests that the deterioration that they have seen is likely to have implications for the banking sector," Macquarie analyst Victor German told Fairfax. "Whilst we believe to some extent ANZ's issues are company specific, ongoing commodity price weakness is likely to translate into higher losses for the sector with ANZ and CBA being the most exposed."

China's Shanghai Composite declined 1.17%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.9% and Japan's Nikkei 0.32%. Dow futures were recently off 11 points or 0.06%.

Crude oil futures retreated another 17 cents or 0.4% this morning to US$39.62 a barrel. Gold futures were $5.80 or 0.5% weaker at US$1,219.80 an ounce. The dollar was buying 75.07 US cents.


And so a downbeat week ends on a low note. We could use a circuit-breaker about now, so the Easter break is timely. If you're thinking about holding over the weekend, bear in mind that the US trades twice before we re-open - they don't take Monday as a holiday. Obviously that matters more with large/mid caps than micros. Trading: thanks JimGorr for the comment yesterday, but I'm off my game this week. Took a bath yesterday and headed towards my first losing week of the year. MIN and ILU did the damage yesterday. I'd be less annoyed with myself if MIN wasn't on my 'Do Not Trade' list - some shares just don't bounce intraday. Placed a lot of buy orders this morning, but no hits yet.