Afternoon trading Dec 14

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Unexpectedly strong jobs growth boosted the dollar and helped the share market creep towards its sixth straight advance.

The ASX 200 set a one-month high en route to a mid-session surplus of five points or 0.1% at 6027. Leading the rally were the metals and mining sector +1.1%, materials +0.8%, IT +0.6% and gold +0.6%. Tempering gains were the utilities sector -1.4% and telecoms -0.2%.

The dollar jumped a third of a cent on news the economy added 61,600 jobs last month, well ahead of the consensus projection of 19,000. The jobless rate held steady at 5.4%. The dollar was buying 76.68 US cents.

"Another month of extraordinarily strong growth in employment leaves little doubt about the current health of the labour market," a Capital Economics spokesperson told Fairfax. "The 61,600 leap in employment in November was well above the consensus forecast and much stronger than the 7,800 increase in October. What's more, the composition of jobs growth was very encouraging, with 41,900 full-time jobs created."


China's Shanghai Composite put on 0.78% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.3%. Japan's Nikkei lost 0.08%. Dow futures were recently ahead 19 points or 0.08%.

Crude oil futures improved 22 cents or 0.39% this morning to US$56.82 a barrel. Gold futures rallied $12 or 0.96% to US$1,260.60 an ounce.


Not a lot of heat at the big end of the market but it's shuffling ahead day after day, like an old man in carpet slippers heading for the corner shop. No urgency to it, but at least it's moving in the right direction. Gold is on a tear this morning. Trading: still opportunities among the specs. Picked off GLL, BUL and NOX.