daytrading feb 28 pre-market

Morning traders.

Market wrap:

Australian stocks face a flat start after weakness in key commodities offset new three-and-a-half-year highs for US shares.

The March SPI 200 futures contract ended the night session one point or less than 0.1% weaker at 4269 after house sales in the USA exceeded expectations and oil fell back for the first time in eight sessions.

Wall Street's benchmark indexes flirted with key resistance levels after overcoming an early swoon as the G20 group of nations quashed European hopes for more bailout funds. The S&P 500 rose 0.14% to close short of a four-year high at 1,368, near the top of its recent trading range. The Dow looked set to close above 13,000 for the first time since May 2008, but faded to a loss of one point or 0.01% at 12,982. The Nasdaq gained 0.08%.

The S&P 500 slumped around 0.8% in early trade after the G20 said non-European member nations will only provide more bailout funds to the International Monetary Fund if the euro-zone increases its contribution. The news pushed European markets lower, although a rebound in US stocks pared the falls before the close. Britain's FTSE lost 0.33%, Germany's DAX 0.22% and France's CAC 0.74%.

US stocks rebounded as oil retreated from a nine-month high and after house sales increased more than twice as much as economists had predicted. Financials and consumer stocks led the rebound.

"This has turned into a more resilient market," the chief investment officer of Solaris Group in the US told Bloomberg. "The home data has helped the market. We don't see a lot of aggressive buyers, but there are not many aggressive sellers."

Oil accelerated its losses as the session wore on after US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said the US would consider using its oil reserves to reduce the impact of Europe's embargo against Iran. US crude for April delivery was lately down $2.07 or 1.9% at US$107.70 a barrel.

Most metals lost ground as a rising US dollar pushed up prices for overseas buyers and oil's sharp decline jangled nerves. Gold gave back some of last week's strong rise, with the decline accelerating in the last hour. Gold for April delivery was recently off $7.40 or 0.4% at US$1,769 an ounce. Silver, platinum and palladium also eased.

Industrial metals finished mixed as investors fretted about oil's impact on global economic growth and the G20's refusal to advance Europe more funds. In London, copper fell 0.2%, aluminium 0.4% and nickel 0.2%. Lead added 1.6%, tin 1.3% and zinc 0.6%. US copper was recently off 0.1%.

TRADING THEMES TODAY

COMMODITY DECLINES TO WEIGH: Very nearly a breakout night in the US but the indexes couldn't hold their gains. The ASX yesterday appeared to pre-empt a much worse session and therefore has room to recover today, but weighing against that scenario are falls in oil, copper and gold. Like Canada, our market is traded by some overseas investors as a proxy for commodity prices and therefore may see some international selling today. Financials were strong in the US and the fall in oil relieved some of the pressure on airlines and other transport stocks.

COMPANY REPORTS: The reporting season continues today with highlights today likely to include: AGO, ALL, AWE, BPT, HVN, MBN, PSA, PSH, QBE and SXL. (Source: Fairfax)

ECONOMIC NEWS: There is nothing major on the domestic calendar today, but a big night ahead in the US includes: durable goods, core durable goods, consumer confidence, house price index and Richmond manufacturing index.

Good luck to all.