The share market trimmed its four-week rally this morning as China's inflation rate held steady and market heavyweight Westpac traded without its dividend.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 42 points or 0.75% lower at 5507 as gains in gold stocks (+5%), metals & mining (+1%) and energy (+0.2%) were dwarfed by falls in financials (-1.5%), health (-1.2%), telecoms (-0.8%) and utilities (-0.8%). WBC was the biggest drag on the market, falling 3.8% as it went ex-dividend.
The market extended its decline following 12.30pm EST news that China's consumer inflation rate held at 1.6% last month, in line with expectations. Producer prices were 2.2% lower than a year earlier, weaker than the 1.9% decline anticipated by economists.
This morning's decline came despite positive US equity futures and robust gains in Hong Kong and China after an announcement this morning that international investors will be able to trade Chinese mainland stocks through the Hong Kong exchange from November 17. Read more here. China's Shanghai Composite rallied 0.83% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng put on 1.72%. Japan's Nikkei lost 0.67%. Dow futures were recently up 25 points or more than 0.1%.
Crude oil futures rallied 18 cents this morning to US$78.84 a barrel. Spot gold was $6.70 weaker at US$1,171.80 an ounce. The dollar was buying 86.59 US cents.
Been a nice rally off the mid-October lows, but the market flattened out last week and looks like it could go either way from here. Sideways consolidation for a few days/weeks? Trading: pretty much a wasted morning for me thanks to the CommSec debacle. Turned up raring to go and was left at the starter's gate. Missed a couple of obvious trades in AJX and AWC. Was in the right place for the bounce in SRR but got too little to make anything more than beer money on it. (Not disagreeing with Mitta's assessment of its short-term prospects - was purely an intraday 'oversold' play.)
