Thanks Beany and morning regulars. Half-time round-up: The share...

Thanks Beany and morning regulars.


Half-time round-up:

The share market looks set to break its six-week winning run as deteriorating commodity prices weigh on resource stocks and caution prevails ahead of tonight's US jobs data.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 20 points or 0.3% lower at 5884 and on track to end the week well below last Friday's closing level of 5929. Resource stocks led this morning's retreat, with the gold sector diving 4.6% after gold settled at a two-month low overnight, and the metals & mining sector losing 2% after iron ore hit a six-year nadir. Health +0.6%, IT +0.6% and consumer staples +0.2% were the only sectors to resist the downtrend.

The retreat followed a listless session on Wall Street as traders took to the sidelines ahead of February employment figures despite overnight confirmation that the European Central Bank will start buying sovereign debt on Monday.

“We now have details of European easing measures,” Juichi Wako, senior strategist at Nomura Holdings in Japan, told Bloomberg. “We’ll probably have a wait-and-see mood ahead of the US jobs report.”

Asian markets rallied. China's Shanghai Composite advanced 0.25%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.39% and Japan's Nikkei 0.99%. Dow futures were recently ahead by two points or less than 0.1%.

Back home, data showed construction activity continued to decline as recent improvements in house building fail to offset a slowdown in mining. The AIG Construction Index fell 2 points 43.9 last month, the index's fourth straight loss.

Crude oil futures rallied 39 cents this morning to US$51.15 a barrel. Spot gold firmed $2.20 to US$1,198.40 an ounce. The dollar was buying 77.99 US cents.


The RBA rate-cut sugar rush was thrilling while it lasted, but looks to have worn off. Trading ranges have contracted and the index has been rounding for the last few weeks. Fresh impetus required. However, trading conditions remain very amenable. I caught some of the bounce in GID this morning, got stuck with a part-fill in ACR that would have been very nice with a full load. More lately taken small bounce speculators in SXL and MSB.