Daytrading August 6 afternoon

Thanks Brit and morning regulars.


Half-time round-up:

A $3 billion capital raising by the ANZ Bank cast a pall over the ASX this morning as a sell-off in bank stocks pushed the share market lower for a second day.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 42 points or 0.75% at 5632 as the ANZ's bumper cash grab overshadowed unusually mixed July jobs data. The jobless rate climbed to 6.3% from 6.1% in June despite an increase in employment that was more than three times larger than economists expected. The economy added 26,100 part-time positions last month, and 12,400 full-time for a total gain of 38,500. Economists had expected growth of around 10,200.

The financial sector was the biggest weight on the market, falling 1.5% as investors sold bank stocks to take up ANZ's share placement. The capital raising came in response to tighter capital requirements demanded by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to protect against bad loans.

Gold stocks rallied 1.8%, metals & mining 1% and materials 0.7%. Notable falls included energy -0.9%, health -0.6% and industrials -0.6%.

China's Shanghai Composite dropped 0.22%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.47% and Japan's Nikkei added 0.77%. Dow futures were recently off 12 points or less than 0.1%.

Spot gold weakened 90 cents this morning to US$1,084.70 an ounce. Crude oil futures edged up a cent to US$45.16 a barrel. The dollar was buying 73.31 US cents.


Thanks for the warm welcome back, crew. Had a busy couple of days helping back-burn around the Wentworth Falls fire. The Rural Fire Service is a bit like day trading - long periods of boredom punctuated by brief bursts of excitement. I applied to join the Remote Area Firefighting Team, which gets all the cool jobs, but when they found out I was a day trader they offered to helicopter me to the fire but had no intention of picking me up. Trading: current conditions are tailor-made for my approach - nice, deep pullbacks with plenty of fat in the bounces. Good returns this morning from CVT, MMJ and SBM. Missed plenty, too - SGH, DOW, SMA.