daytrading dec 8 afternoon

Thanks Endless. Half-time round-up:

Australian shares continued a see-saw week with a mild decline following a surprise rise in unemployment and declines across Asian markets.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was off 18 points or 0.4% at 4273 as falls in cyclical stocks outweighed gains in a handful of defensive sectors, including telecoms +0.9% and gold +0.7%. The declines continued the pattern for the week where any rise in the index has been followed next day by a fall.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.3% last month as the economy shed nearly 40,000 full-time positions. An increase of 33,600 part-time positions cut the overall fall in jobs to 6,300, still much less than the 10,000 net gain predicted by economists.

"It's a softer number... much weaker than the market had been looking for," Macquarie economist Brian Redican told Fairfax. "The longer this kind of softness persists the greater downside risk for consumer spending and that's just going to put pressure on businesses."

Asian markets retreated ahead of tonight's European Central Bank meeting and tomorrow's summit of European Union leaders. Japan's Nikkei dropped 1.07%, Shanghai 0.83% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.22%. Dow futures were recently up 6 points or less than 0.1%.

"Investors can't buy or sell until they see the results of the [European] meetings," Mitsushige Akino of Ichiyoshi Investment Management in Japan told Bloomberg. "Stocks have been rising on expectations the European Union and the European Central Bank may take some action, but now investors need to see whether the results meet or beat expectations."

Crude oil futures eased four cents this morning to US$100.48 a barrel. Spot gold was $8.60 weaker at US$1,737 an ounce.


The market's not doing that badly, considering those employment figures. A couple of weeks ago that report would have sent us down another 20 odd points. Still, this week has been pretty slow going and this morning was no different. NRL looked overdone at 4.5 and that proved a good buy. Grabbed a few FXJ - one of my favourite intraday swingers. Missed several other opportunities - been a bit trigger-shy this morning because I don't want to take any new positions into the weekend with so much at stake in Europe.