daytrades july 22 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Local stocks fell for the first session in three this morning as business confidence slumped and regional markets rolled over.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 27 points or 0.6% at 4385 as losses among the big banks, property trusts, industrials and health stocks outweighed modest gains for resource stocks.

Business confidence tumbled in the June quarter, according to a survey released this morning. The NAB quarterly index of business confidence slipped 14 points to three points and business conditions down two points to six index points.

"Confidence had been relatively euphoric since the middle of last year, but the June quarter saw it retreat to more temperate levels," NAB chief economist Alan Oster said in a statement quoted on Fairfax websites. "The monthly surveys suggest that businesses became much less optimistic in May, as Euro-centric financial market troubles sparked reductions in equity and commodity markets and were associated with a sharp decline in the Australian dollar."

Regional markets were troubled by U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's downbeat assessment of the economic outlook overnight.

"It is pretty obvious looking at the way markets have been trading of late that there is a lot of uncertainty over the growth outlook. But for the Fed Chairman to admit it in such a direct manner does not exactly inspire confidence among investors," Khoon Goh, senior economist at ANZ bank in Wellington told MarketWatch.. "It is clear that the Fed will not only continue to stay on hold for a long time, but there is a chance that the Fed may have to do more to provide support to the economy."

Asian markets fell back. Japan's Nikkei finished morning trade down 0.68%, Shanghai zig-zagged in and out of positive territory, recently trading up 0.25% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was off 0.3%. Dow futures were recently at -9.

Crude oil futures dropped a hefty 63 cents this morning to $76.50 a barrel. The spot gold price was 20 cents stronger at $1,185.50 an ounce. The Aussie dollar was weaker against the major currencies, buying 0.8749 U.S. cents, down 0.24%.


Our market weathered the storm well for much of the morning but looks to be sobering up. I was too cautious at the open - expected better entry levels and missed out. Took profits on NUF, possibly prematurely. Added some ASX near $28 for any afternoon bounce. Well done to the RXL profiteers - been a while since anything ran that hard.