Daytrading October 19 afternoon

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares rallied for a second day ahead of a mid-session Chinese economic update, helped by merger action and overnight gains in commodities.

The ASX 200 was 24 points or 0.4% higher at 5434 immediately before the 1pm AEST release of Chinese GDP, industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment data. Concerns about the health of the Chinese economy were fuelled by disappointing trade figures last week, but partly offset by indications the US economy is not firing hot enough for the Federal Reserve to ramp up rates.

“Markets have taken the view that steady US core inflation will allow the Fed to maintain a snail-like pace of monetary tightening beyond the expected rate cut in December,” Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, told Bloomberg. “Traders are weighing the odds of missing a recovery led by solid US profit reports and a recovery in bond prices against the risks of disappointing data from China."

The consumer discretionary sector rallied 1.6% this morning after TTS and TAH announced plans to merge. Also strong were gold +3.1%, telecoms +1.3% and industrials +1%.

China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.35%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.13% and Japan's Nikkei 0.06%. Dow futures were recently up 10 points or 0.06%.

Crude oil futures jumped 44 cents or 0.87% this morning to US$50.73 a barrel. Gold futures firmed $1.80 or 0.14% to US$1,264.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying 76.86 US cents.


Chinese data due any moment. Market will be looking for signs that last week's trade slump was an outlier, not a canary. Trading: tougher session after two days of plenty. Scraped a profit out of BEE and should have nailed a few more with a bit more aggression.