Afternoon trading June 21

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Australian shares hit fresh ten-year highs this morning as the tech sector reached its strongest level since the dot.com crash.

The ASX 200 rallied 72 points or 1.2% to 6244, extending the index's five-day gain beyond 220 points as international money floods the market to take advantage of the subdued rates outlook relative to the US and Europe. The IT sector jumped 2.1% to a level last seen in December 2000 when the first wave of domestic tech stocks were crashing along with their US counterparts. Overnight, the Nasdaq closed at a new all-time high.

Strong gains were seen in consumer discretionary stocks +2%, consumer staples +2% and health +1.6%. The telecoms sector was the only loser, falling 0.5% as Telstra remained under pressure following yesterday's job-loss announcement.

US futures improved as Asian markets shrugged off on-going trade war concerns. China's Shanghai Composite advanced 0.68%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.53% and Japan's Nikkei 0.79%. S&P 500 futures were recently up 11 points or 0.4%.

August crude oil futures edged up a cent or 0.02% this morning to US$65.72 a barrel. Gold futures slipped $5.50 or 0.43% to US$1,269 an ounce. The dollar was buying 73.7 US cents.



What a run. Reminiscent of last year's Oct-Nov breakout. Suspect it's to do with the benign rates outlook here. If rates stay low, then the share market remains an attractive alternative to bank deposits, etc. Trading: CLA delivered the goods. Still not as busy as I'd like to be. Thank God for the World Cup.