Daytrading Oct 8 afternoon

Thanks Brit and morning regulars.


Half-time round-up:

Australian shares surged to their highest level in almost six weeks before dramatically paring gains as China's stock market rallied less than anticipated after a week-long holiday.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was trading 17 points or 0.3% ahead at 5215 but well off the intraday peak at 5256. The metals & mining sector led the way with a jump of 2.3%. Also strong were materials +1.6%, energy +0.7%, health +1.3% and financials +0.4%. An uneven rally left behind the gold sector -2.1%, property trusts -0.9%, industrials -0.67% and utilities -0.6%.

The index gave up more 30 points in less than half an hour after China's Shanghai Composite resumed trade following a week-long holiday with a bounce of 2.85%. The rally was significantly short of an 8% rally in Hong Kong during the holiday and an 11% gain in Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong. The Hang Seng fell 0.89% and Japan's Nikkei 0.5%. Dow futures were recently off 59  points or 0.35%.

"Given H-shares jumped 11% during the mainland trading break, a 3% gain by the Shanghai Composite at the open is underwhelming," Bloomberg reporter Richard Frost tweeted.

Crude oil futures rebounded 18 cents this morning to US$47.99 a barrel. Spot gold declined $4 to US$1,144.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.95 US cents.


We're starting to see rebounds in beaten-up miners: ERA, RXL, CTP. Could be the next 'big theme'. The XJO has put in a 'higher high', now we'd like a nice 'higher low' please to give confidence that this downswing is behind us. The XMM has done the heavy lifting so far. May need to see the financials to join in from here. Trading: took an early profit on PGH from yesterday. Should  have held on to 1PG as well. Squeezed something out of BUX but should have done better. First stab at BAL.