daytrading march 14 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Unexpectedly strong jobs figures boosted the dollar but failed to arrest a third day of declines for the Australian share market amid heavy selling in resource stocks.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 46 points or 0.9% weaker at 5046, led by losses in the metals & mining sector -2.3%, materials -2% and gold -2.6%. Most of the handful of sectors that rose this morning were defensive: health +0.2% and consumer staples +0.2%.

The dollar jumped around three-quarters of a cent to US$1.037 as the odds on further rate cuts tumbled after the economy added 71,500 jobs last month, way beyond the wildest prediction. The jobless rate was steady at 5.4%. The share market rallied briefly on the jobs report at 11.30am EST, then fell away as traders contemplated a possible end of the rate cutting cycle.

"It's spectacular employment growth that was reported for February," Macquarie senior economist Brian Redican told Fairfax. "With that kind of employment growth, obviously policy makers would be feeling pretty comfortable with the current policy settings."

Most Asian markets weakened this morning. Shanghai slipped 0.35%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 1.1% and Japan's Nikkei rallied 0.09%. Dow futures were recently off nine points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures fell 23 cents this morning to US$92.24 a barrel. Spot gold was $1.10 weaker at US$1,585.50 an ounce.


Urgent press release: "Further to this morning's feeding frenzy in HNR, I am happy to announce that Highlandlad Blue Sky Trading Ltd has just discovered Outstanding Historic Trading Results from its 100% owned portfolio of shares. These outstanding results date from 2007 and suggest a strong future for the company if the market trends then pertaining continue indefinitely, as they surely will. I urge you all to buy shares in this company, which has no intention of using any resultant rally in its share price to raise capital. Honest." Bravo if you made money out of this morning's events in HNR, but a 260% rise on historic results? Flabbergasting. The longer I spend in the market, the less I understand it. As for my morning, let's just say I did better in 2007. Wrong morning to be holding IRE and APA before the employment report. Ouch.