daytrade diaries... october 2 part 2

Half-time round-up:

A weak lead from Wall St sent local stocks to their lowest level in almost three weeks this morning.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 93 points or 1.98% at 4608 after a broad sell-off left no sector untouched. The biggest falls were in metals & mining, down 2.6%, materials -2.6%, property trusts -2.2%, financials -2.1% and gold -2.1%.

The prospect of imminent rate rises diminished after news that inflation was unchanged last month on the previous month. The TD Securities-Melbourne Institute monthly inflation gauge rose by 1.3% from a year earlier, well below the Reserve Bank of Australia's 2-3% target band.

Asian markets were sharply lower. The Nikkei tumbled 2.46%, Hong Kong lost 2.6% China and South Korea were closed. Dow futures were mildly negative at -21. The spot gold price recovered the $1,000 mark, recently trading at $1,000.40.

Been a reasonable morning here. I set about a dozen buy orders at support levels and four were hit. Caught worthwhile bounces in BRM and BLD, a skinny profit in BOW (in too early) and exited MCR for brokerage. More recently, added MTS as a defensive with bounce potential at 4.41 and a tiny parcel of ORE at 1.31.

Potential overnight holds: none. Wall St could swing violently either way tonight, depending on jobs figures. There's no way to predict which, so I'll play safe and aim to enter the weekend with close to an empty portfolio.