daytrading may 22 afternoon

Thanks Mark.

Half-time round-up:

The Australian share market is on track for back-to-back gains for the first time in three weeks after China's leading index held steady last month.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead 28 points or 0.7% at 4102 with all sectors except gold, health and IT advancing this morning. Industrials led the rally, rising 1.6%, ahead of materials +0.7% and financials +0.5%.

"Obviously the markets were extremely weak last week, this is just a little bit of a relief rally given the situation in Europe hasn't deteriorated further," Stephen Halmarick, head of investment markets research at Colonial First State Global Asset Management, told Bloomberg. "In the absence of more bad news out of Europe, pro-growth comments out of China are supporting the markets."

Asian markets added to yesterday's gains as a leading index of economic indicators for China held its ground for a third straight month at +0.8%. Japan's Nikkei advanced 0.98%, Shanghai 0.69% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.89%. Dow futures were recently down 10 points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures eased two cents this morning to US$92.68 a barrel. Spot gold was $1.60 weaker at US$1,591 an ounce. The dollar was buying 99.02 US cents.


So far so good. Plenty of caution still around but the index has held most of its gains. No trading for me today - brain is fogged in by a virus and I'm heading back to bed. Best of luck for the arvo.