Phew, made it. Thanks, as always, for the morning launch, Endless. You're on fire with the one-liners this past month. They've kept me chuckling through the market doldrums.
Half-time round-up:
Australian shares have eased for just the second time in nine sessions during a "risk off" morning on world markets.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 12 points or 0.3% weaker at 4519 despite the prospect of a Reserve Bank rate cut this afternoon. Resource stocks and small caps suffered the biggest declines as the US fiscal cliff stalemate continued to crimp risk appetite. Gold stocks fell 1.9%, the Small Ordinaries 0.8% and materials 0.7%. Telecoms and health stocks were among the handful of sectors to edge higher.
"There were few tangible signs of any material progress on the fiscal cliff, the single biggest issue in markets right now and one that will influence how all asset classes trade into year-end," Cameron Peacock, market strategist at IG Market, told Bloomberg.
US futures weakened with Asian markets this morning. Shanghai fell 0.21%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.09% and Japan's Nikkei 0.15%. Dow futures were recently off 19 points or 0.15%.
Crude oil futures retraced 14 cents this morning to US$88.95 a barrel. Spot gold dropped $4.20 to US$1,713.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying $US1.0432.
Bring on the rate cut. Probably factored in yesterday, but this market needs something to get it moving. Opportunities were scarce enough this morning without technical problems adding to the challenge. Stalked a couple of prospects only to miss entries during several internet drop-outs this morning. TPT my only purchase so far.
