Morning N. There's a real mixed bag of signals to digest this morning. Got to be opportunities in this lot but there are conflicting signs everywhere.
A rally in oversold financial stocks overnight helped Wall Street recover most of Tuesday's heavy losses. The major indexes surged 3.5 - 4.5%. Bank indices rose 10 - 12%, making up half of Tuesday's losses. There were also strong gains in the REIT sector and gas and oil sectors.
Oil rocketed back towards $44 in action exaggerated by the rollover of the monthly contract. Gold was steady but there were significant falls in base metals, with aluminium dropping hard.
Our futures like the news, promising an open 2% up on yesterdays' XJO close.
Combined with ASIC's decision yesterday to extend the "ban" on short-selling of financials here, the US rally should send our banks higher today. But you'll be buying a sector in a firm downtrend. Resources should rally at the open but the base metal price action will weigh on the sector. Yesterday's BHP job cuts confirmed how tough things are out there. Oil is the safe bet today IMO.
Stocks at or near support worth watching today include DOW, ORI, QBE, ARG and MIG. Other stocks of interest as they complete or near pullbacks include ASX, TSE, CPU, AIO and LEI.
