Daytrading March 9 afternoon

Thanks Brit and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Australian shares resisted a global pullback over the last 24 hours as gains in banks, industrials and defensive sectors offset weakness in resource stocks.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 15 points or 0.3% ahead at 5123 and on the improve after earlier falling 26 points into the red. The best of the sectors were health +1.2%, financials +0.8%, consumer discretionary +0.8% and industrials +0.8%.

The biggest pressures on the index were energy -3.1%, metals & mining -3% and gold -3.2%. The declines reflected overnight weakness in commodities following disappointing Chinese trade figures.

“Yesterday’s China trade data has become the seismic centre for concerns over the global economy,” Chihiro Ohta, general manager of investment information at SMBC Nikko Securities in Japan, told Bloomberg. “The recent trend is that when the market’s up everything goes up, and when it’s down everything is down. It’s not a nimble market where certain areas rise and certain areas fall.”

China's Shanghai Composite gave up 2.03%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.7% and Japan's Nikkei 1.25%. Dow futures were recently up eight points or 0.05%.

Crude oil futures slipped 11 two cents or 0.3% this morning to US$36.39 a barrel. Spot gold softened $7.70 to US$1,255.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 74.22 US cents.


Not a bad performance compared to Asia and considering how the US and Europe fared overnight. Fairly sharp drop in gold recently. Trading: yesterday was a beauty, today the mirror image. Been on the defensive in every trade I took. Hoped BCI would be another SEA, but that preposterous blocking order at 18.5c stuffed things up. No one seems willing to have a go at it. Wanted ARI and AGO a little lower. Took RFN, APA and ILU too early. Out of ILU flat, small profit in APA - shoulda done a lot better. A+ yesterday, dunce hat today.

PS   Could someone cover for me in this slot same time tomorrow please? Have something on I can't avoid.