daytrades june 17 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Australian shares rebounded this morning but trimmed initial gains as Asian markets wavered despite overnight rises on Wall Street.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead 13 points or 0.3% at 4492 after rising as much as 45 points in early trade. The financial sector, up 0.7%, accounted for much of the morning's rise, while delays at WPL's Pluto LNG plant helped make energy the worst of the sectors, down 1%.

"There's a bit of a relief [rally] today," David Liu, head of research at ATI Asset Management told Fairfax. "The major concern still remains the Greece situation and the potential for some sort of contagion. If there is a default, it is going to impact significantly the European banks and that will flow on to the US and potentially a period of slower growth."

Asian markets mostly resisted Wall Street's positive overnight lead in cautious trade ahead of weekend meetings in Europe to discuss solutions to Greece's debt burden. RBC Capital Markets told MarketWatch. that market sentiment "remains on a knife edge".

Japan's Nikkei eased 0.01%, Shanghai recently turned positive, adding 0.22%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.29%. Dow futures were recently at +13.

Crude oil futures turned lower this morning, recently falling 30 cents to US $94.77 a barrel. Spot gold was $3.20 softer at US $1,526.80 an ounce. The dollar was buying US $1.0544.


Hope no one has been caught out by the steady fade after that bullish start. Not easy conditions for trading. I normally do fairly well during market pullbacks, but the lack of liquidity and some over-eager buying have hurt my trading account this week. Haven't been getting enough sleep due to crocked shoulder, absent wife, all-too-present mother-in-law and sick kids. (Endless, if you're lurking here and spot my missus in Spain, tell her to buy me sangria and come home immediately.) Will take a hit later if KIK and NDO wallow at these levels. One of my better decisions was to hold onto PLV from Wednesday - now come good. Otherwise I'll be glad to put this week behind me.