daytrades may 5 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

The share market recovered from a six-week low this morning as a well-received profit rise from NAB offset overnight falls in commodity prices and a surprise dip in retail sales.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 1 point or 0.02% at 4739 after gains in mining stocks, small caps and Telstra. The financial sector was 0.4% weaker despite NAB's 15% increase in first-half profit.

Retail stocks were sold off and the dollar retreated after March retail figures showed a decline of 0.5% from the month before. The drop was the first in five months. The consumer discretionary sector lost 1.4% this morning and consumer staples were down 0.4%. The dollar eased another quarter of a cent to US $1.0708.

"The Aussie is having a rough day at the office," Westpac senior currency strategist Sean Callow told Fairfax. "It ignored the building approvals and focused on retail sales which are just horrible. Consumers have been quite conservative for quite some time. It's been pretty clear that unless you're directly employed in the mining industry than you're not really feeling the love of the mining boom."

Building approvals jumped a seasonally-adjusted 9.1% in March, but remained 18.1% weaker in the year to March, the ABS said this morning.

US futures remained cautiously bullish despite Asian markets continuing yesterday's pullback. Shanghai was recently down 0.26% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng off 0.1%. Japan's Nikkei was closed for the third and last day of a public holiday. Dow futures were recently at +31.

Crude oil futures eased 22 cents this morning to US $108.59 a barrel. Spot gold recovered 80 cents to US $1,517 an ounce. Spot silver declined another 38 cents to US $39.01.


Choppy morning. Market looks manic depressive. Plenty of volatility in the mid-caps, which is where I'm doing most of my trading while volumes at the spec end are weak. Scalped early bounces in ASL and CRZ. Been accumulating far too many shares at/near support ready for any arvo recoveries, including TEN, ALL, APN, SGP, DRK, BYR and MZM.