Thanks Brit and morning crew.
Half-time round-up:
Shares turned positive this morning as an upbeat employment outlook from the RBA helped offset a five-week low in market heavyweight BHP following news of a disaster at one of the company's Brazilian mines.
At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was trading ten points or 0.2% ahead at 5204 after earlier falling as low as 5153. Falls in energy -2%, metals & mining -1.7%, materials -0.9% and gold -0.7% were counter-balanced by rises in utilities +0.8%, industrials +0.6%, health +0.7% and financials +0.2%. BHP was lately down 2.8% after being down as much as 5% on news that a dam at its joint venture in Minas Gerais burst, killing up to 16 people.
The Reserve Bank's quarterly outlook statement cut next year's inflation and growth forecasts but said jobs growth is expected “to remain relatively strong”. The statement noted an improvement in the economy over the third calendar-quarter .
Read more here.
China's Shanghai Composite consolidated two days of strong gains, lately up 0.05%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 1% and Japan's Nikkei rallied 0.32%. Dow futures were recently 16 points or 0.1% lower.
“The market is on tenterhooks ahead of the US non-farm payrolls [report tonight],” Angus Nicholson, analyst at IG Markets, told
Bloomberg. “U. data has been somewhat mixed but the market has been responding more strongly to the Fed statements this week that they could hike rates this year.”
Crude oil futures recouped 15 cents this morning at US$45.35 a barrel. Spot gold was $2.90 stronger at US$1,107.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.46 US cents.
Looks like a second straight losing week for the ASX. The recovery has well and truly spluttered here. Disappointing that there has been no uplift from a near 6% surge in Shanghai over the last few sessions. Trading: nice end to the week courtesy of CV1, IVO and - hopefully - a tiddler I'm not quite clear of yet.
