Afternoon trading February 21

Thanks @shovel40, @Fiji1, @uncleBuck and morning crew.

Half-time wrap:

Aussie shares faded towards a fifth straight loss as commodity price gains and US takeover offers for Domain Holdings and Mayne Pharma failed to offset weak leads from Wall Street.

The ASX 200 dropped 13 points or 0.16% at the end of a challenging week for investors that threw up some high-profile disappointments as the interim earnings season rolled on.

The morning's biggest winners were takeover targets. Domain Holdings jumped 39.1% after US-listed CoStar lobbed a bid. Parent company Nine Entertainment surged 22.57%. Mayne Pharma bolted 33.27% after inking a deal with US women's health specialist Cosette Pharmaceuticals.

At the heavyweight end of the market, solid rises in iron ore and base metals helped lift BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue by at least 2%.

US stocks stumbled overnight after a downbeat outlook from retail bellwether Walmart cast doubt on the spending power of the almighty American consumer. The S&P 500 eased 0.43%.


Personal trading: REA looked overdone at the open on the DHG news, so took that for the initial rebound. PNI gave a nice set-up from support on the 5-min chart just around 11 am - took that. Also took HLS at the bottom of its intraday trading range for not very much.