Afternoon trading April 19

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Resource stocks set the pace as the ASX 200 pushed briefly through 5900 for the first time in almost a month.

At the halfway mark of the session, the benchmark index was 30 points or 0.5% ahead at 5892 after earlier hitting a three-and-a-half-week high of 5903. The metals & mining sector did the heavy lifting, surging 2.8% to its strongest level since January. Further support came from materials +2.4%, energy +1.1% and financials +0.1%. Overall gains were capped by declines in IT -0.4%, telecoms -0.1% and gold -0.1%.

Asian markets moved firmly higher despite a mixed close on Wall Street overnight. China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.84%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.25% and Japan's Nikkei 0.62%. Last night, the S&P 500 eked out a closing gain of 0.08%, while the Dow closed 0.16% in the red. S&P 500 futures were recently ahead 2.5 points or 0.09%.

Crude oil futures nudged up 23 cents or 0.34% this morning to US$68.70 a barrel. Gold futures shed $1 or 0.07% to US$1,352.30 an ounce. The dollar was buying 77.74 US cents.



Trading: been a messy week so far at this trading desk. Failures close to matching successful trades. That ratio won't work. Got out of NAG this morning from yesterday with a decent profit but look likely to give some back in IVX. Have a sense that trading conditions have deteriorated  over the last two weeks. Of course, each trader has a different experience, so I can't generalise from my own misfires. Everything's roses if you're in the right trades.