daytrades july 4 afternoon

Afternoon all, hope this is still the plan. This is start of the arvo thread.

Comments courtesy of Commsec

MIDDAY REPORT
(12pm AEST)

The Australian sharemarket has kicked off the week in promising fashion, with the All Ordinaries index (XAO) up 0.6 pct pr 30.1 pts to 4678. All sectors are currently trading in positive territory.

Australia�s largest miner, BHP Billiton (BHP) is up 0.87 pct or 38 cents to $44.16 while the smaller RIO Tinto (RIO) is 0.66 pct or 55 cents higher to $83.38. The country�s largest gold producer, Newcrest Mining (NCM) is 0.13 pct or 5 cents to $37.78 despite a slightly lower oil price in Friday night trade.

The 4 big banks are off to a solid start, with Westpac (WBC) up 0.5 pct or 11 cents to $22.13 Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) 0.58 pct or 30 cents higher to $52.22, ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) 0.27 pct or 6 cents stronger to $22.02 and National Australia Bank (NAB) is gaining by 0.31 pct or 8 cents to $25.56.

The retailer are mixed following some worse than expected economic data out this morning. Department store owner, David Jones (DJS) is down 0.25 pct or 1 cent to $3.93 while its competitor Myer (MYR) is flat. Australia�s largest specialty retailer, Harvey Norman (HVN) is down 0.41 pct or 1 cent to $2.43.

The country�s largest telco, Telstra (TLS) is up 0.68 pct or 2 cents to $2.94 and is trading under the $3.00 mark for the eighth straight session.

Following the end of daylight savings in April this year, major Asian markets will be trading between the hours mentioned below until mid October.

The Hong Kong sharemarket trades in two sessions each day and will now be opening for trade between 11.30am (AEST) and 2pm (AEST) and then between 3.30pm (AEST) and 6pm (AEST) in its second session.

Out of Japan, the first session will be between 10am (AEST) and 12pm (AEST), while the second session is between 1.30pm (AEST) and 4pm (AEST).

The Singapore exchange will be open for trade between 11am (AEST) and 2.30pm (AEST) for the first session and then between 4pm (AEST) and 7pm (AEST) in its second session.

The Asian sharemarkets are all stronger, with South Korea�s KOSPI index up 1.05 pct or 22.27 pct to 2148.01, Hong Kong�s Hang Seng is up 1.6 pct or 357.33 pts to 22755.43, China�s Shanghai Composite index is 0.88 pct or 24.29 pts to 2783.74 and shares in Taiwan and Philippines are both slightly stronger.

This week will be a big one for economic releases, with the latest inflation gauge, retail sales numbers, a job advertisement report in addition to the Reserve Bank of Australia�s (RBA) decision on interest rates out today and tomorrow.

The best performing stock at lunch is Virgin Blue (VBA) which is up over 10.5 pct following news of Tiger Airways� grounding due to safety concerns.

So far today, 978 million shares have been traded worth $1.5 billion. 637 shares are up, 256 are lower and 292 are currently unchanged.

The Australian dollar buys US107.4 cents.

Steven Daghlian
Commsec Market Analyst