Afternoon trading October 1

Thanks Grundlebundle and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The ASX began a new month on the back foot, sliding below 6200 as the big banks reversed Friday's relief rally.

The ASX 200 was off 40 points or 0.6% at the middle of a holiday-affected session, falling to 6168. The financial sector slumped 1.4% after investors had a weekend to study the interim report from the Royal Commission released on Friday. The materials sector dipped 0.3% following the release yesterday of data showing Chinese manufacturing stalled last month as US tariffs began to bite. Traditional defensive sectors health and gold rallied 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.

“The further slowdown in China’s official manufacturing PMI in September reflects the intensifying impact of the US-China trade war on China’s manufacturing export sector,” Rajiv Biswas, APAC chief economist at IHS Markit in Singapore, told Bloomberg. “The near-term outlook for the Chinese manufacturing export sector remains weak, albeit the Chinese government may apply some further stimulus measures to support growth.”

Trade on China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was suspended for public holidays. Japan's Nikkei improved 0.59%. S&P 500 futures jumped a bullish 16.5 points or 0.57% following reports that US and Canadian negotiators were close to a deal on trade.

Crude oil futures rose 33 cents or 0.45% this morning to US$73.58 a barrel. Gold futures faded $3.50 or 0.29% to US$1,192.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying 72.25 US cents.



Trading: had low expectations for the day, with trading volumes much reduced by all the holidays. Placed plenty of orders, but no hits yet. So it goes.