Afternoon trading August 11

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

A jump in global volatility pushed the ASX to a three-week low as Asian markets reacted to Wall Street's heaviest loss in three months.

The ASX 200 dropped as low as 5674 before paring its loss to 74 points or 1.3% at 5686 as bargain-hunters bet that tensions between the USA and North Korea will blow over. The only sectors to make headway this morning were defensive: gold +2% and utilities +0.1%. Consumer discretionary stocks led the retreat, falling 2%, followed by financials -1.7%, energy -1.4% and materials -1.1%.

Overnight, the S&P 500 dived 1.45%, its largest decline in three months, amid a flight to safety as the US and North Korea continued to exchange barbs.

"This has injected the first note of volatility into US stock markets for some time," CMC chief market analyst Ric Spooner told Fairfax. "US markets had previously been becalmed amidst the Goldilocks scenario of strong profit growth, low interest rates and full valuations. Difficult-to-assess political risk is now intruding on this scenario."


US equity futures remained nervy as Asian markets fell back. China's Shanghai Composite shed 0.8% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.26%. Trade on Japan's Nikkei was suspended for a public holiday. Dow futures were recently down 16 points or 0.07%. S&P 500 futures were off 2.75 points or 0.11%.

Crude oil futures gave up 13 cents or 0.27% this morning to US$48.46 a barrel. Gold futures advanced $1.40 or 0.11% to US$1,291.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 78.56 US cents.


Nice to see a pick-up in volatility, but it takes more than a single session to penetrate the retail market consciousness. I was geared up for a busy day of bounce trading but mostly twiddled my thumbs. Got four pips out of ALC, but was otherwise too cautious in expectation of better opportunities. Looked at NOR at 1.8c and decided to wait until 1.7 - doh. As for the broader market, the index is still trading within its recent range. Needs a breakout one way or the other to shake things up.