daytrading nov 1 cup afternnon

Thanks Endless. Afternoon race-goers. Best of luck with this arvo's punts. Half-time round-up:

Australian stocks fell for a second day as a Chinese manufacturing report missed expectations and overnight events in Europe heightened sovereign debt concerns.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was off 52 points or 1.2% at 4245, with all sectors except the defensive telecoms and property trusts trading in the red. The declines were sharpest in the metals & mining sector -2%, IT -1.7% and financials -1.4%.

The declines accelerated after the official Chinese manufacturing purchasing managers' index came in weaker than expected at noon AEST. The index declined from 51.2 in September to 50.4 last month, above the 50-point level that indicates expansion but well short of economists' expectation for a reading of 51.9.

Also weighing on regional markets and US futures was overnight news that Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou wants to put the European Union's deal for financing Greece to a referendum.

"There are still a lot of question marks over the viability of the [European] deal that was announced last week," Belinda Allen, senior investment analyst at Colonial First State Global Asset Management in Sydney told Bloomberg. "There's still a lot of concern out there how the solvency issue will be solved in Europe. Those question marks certainly forced the equity market to fall overnight."

Japan's Nikkei fell 0.79% this morning and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1.47% but Shanghai was recently up 0.15% . Dow futures were recently down 20 points or nearly 0.2%.

The morning's domestic economic news was mixed, with manufacturing improving from markedly weak levels and house sales declining to a decade low in September. The AIG/PWC performance of manufacturing index lifted 5.1 points last month to 47.4, but remained stuck under the 50 level that separates contraction from expansion. The number of new homes sold in September fell by 3.5% to the weakest level since December 2000.

Crude oil futures improved 11 cents this morning to US$92.79 a barrel. Spot gold was $5.30 stronger at US$1,723.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying US$1.0535.


That surprisingly weak Chinese manufacturing report knocked another 20 points off the market, some of it now recovered. All we need now is rates on hold this afternoon and we'll finish down around 100 points, lol. Gulp. Been a very mixed morning at this trading desk. Winds in NXS, HVN, AIO and MCR at their lows but took CGM too early.