daytrade diaries... july 10

Morning traders.

Market wrap: Slim gains in resources markets hold out the prospect of a positive end to the Australian trading week, despite another lacklustre night on Wall St.

US stocks scraped out meagre advances as investors demonstrated it will take more than Alcoa's smaller-than-expected loss to excite markets this reporting season. The S&P 500 rose 0.35%, the Dow Jones 0.06% and the Nasdaq 0.31% during a rangebound night of low volatility. Financials were the main driver, but there were also bounces for oilers and precious metals miners.

Crude oil futures dipped below $60 before squeezing out their first gain in seven days on weakness in the US dollar and a decline in the number of initial job claims. Crude futures were recently trading at $60.43, up around 0.5%. Gold also benefitted from a sliding US$, touching $916 before slipping back to $912.60, up more than $3 on this time yesterday.

Copper reversed a four-day plunge with its biggest rise in a month, up 3.6%. Aluminum rose 2.3%, lead 0.9% and zinc 1.5%, but tin fell 5.2% and nickel slipped 0.3%.

With 25 minutes left to trade, futures traders were pricing in a green open for our market. The SPI was up 13 points at 3748.

TRADING THEMES TODAY

RESOURCES: After two weeks of heavy falls in the sector, last night may have marked a short-term turn for resources stocks. The big two have been rallying intraday since Tuesday, suggesting local instos see value at these levels. Yesterday our mining/energy sectors advanced despite heavy overnight falls in commodity prices - another clue that the sector is ready to bounce. Miners led the Canadian stock market up 1.25% overnight - a pointer for us today?

SPECS: Although there are always a few speccies on the move, now and then a heap of them seem to come into season all at once - for example, last Christmas's "running of the dogs" or the March/April deluge. The recent breakouts in NSL, LKO, CAG and ESI hint at another such season. Specs are not my strong suit but I've done well by piggy-backing on the knowledge and research of many of the generous traders who post here - Poly, Young Trader, PJ, MKNOP and Ipod among others. They're worth watching especially closely now.

OVERNIGHT HOLDS? The overseas action is not supportive yet but for the last two days our market has looked like a coiling spring - like it wants to spring higher despite good reasons to keep falling. Today is probably a day or two early but a two- or three-day rally looks like it's not far away.

Good luck to all.