Thanks Gttrain - sterling job this past month. Welcome back Endless.
Half-time round-up:
Australian shares surrendered initial gains this morning as Asian markets retreated and US futures flashed red following profit disappointments from Apple and Amazon.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 10 points or 0.2% weaker at 4500 after earlier rallying as high as 4526. Rises in gold stocks +1.4%, telecoms +0.8% and industrials +0.1% were swamped by falls across the rest of the bourse. Financials lost 0.1% despite a 3.7% jump in MQG after the investment bank recommitted to its full-year profit target.
"We've had a pretty good run," Macquarie Private Wealth division director Lucinda Chan told Fairfax. "I don't think markets can continue to keep going up without a bit of a pullback. I suppose the local market in some ways is probably still awaiting, perhaps, the outcome of what is happening in the European markets."
US futures pointed to a negative open tonight after Apple and Amazon lost ground in after-market trade when they reported third-quarter earnings this morning. Dow futures were recently down 40 points or 0.3%. Amazon ended the after-market session 1% weaker after earlier falling as much as 9%. Apple slumped initially before ending the after-market session roughly where it finished regular trade, down 1.2%.
Asian markets gave up early advances. Shanghai fell 0.22%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.25% and Japan's Nikkei 0.18%.
Crude oil futures retreated 14 cents this morning to US$86.01 a barrel. Spot gold firmed 50 cents to US$1,713.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying $US1.036.
Not sure why it took our market so long to react to the negative US futures but it probably gave the shorts time to get set. Volumes seemed particularly weak this morning. I was waiting for retraces in several stocks but trading has been so sluggish that I'm wondering if I'll have the patience. One of my buys from yesterday hasn't traded at all. MOU was on my list and offered a nice entry at 1.4c. Also caught the low in KAR but with the sort of lousy part-fill where a seven-point bounce earned nothing.
