Afternoon trading August 16

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share market pared two days of solid gains as index giant CBA traded without its dividend and a bumpy corporate profit season continued.

The ASX 200 was down nine points or 0.2% at 5748 at the halfway mark as disappointing updates from CSL, PGH, CPU, SEK and SWM weighed. The health sector declined 2%, IT 1.9%, gold 1.3% and metals & mining 0.6%. The financial sector eased 0.3% as gains in ANZ, WBC and NAB offset CBA's post-dividend fall.

Not all was gloom on the earnings front, with AOG surging 11%, IVC 5.3%, ORG 4.6% and WPL 3.3%. The energy sector jumped 2.3%, telecoms 1.1% and consumer discretionary 056%.

A mixed morning in Asia saw China's Shanghai Composite drop 0.47%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rally 0.37% and Japan's Nikkei edge up 0.02%. Dow futures were recently neutral at -3 points or 0.01%.

Crude oil futures improved 17 cents or 0.36% this morning to US$47.72 a barrel. Gold futures faded 80 cents or 0.06% to US$1,278.90 an ounce. The dollar was buying 78.29 US cents.



Great to see some heat back in the specs after the deep freeze that set in from April/May through June. Trading got  very difficult there for a while. The buyer's strike lifted and we have runners once again. Trading: got lucky with BUX buy from yesterday - sold the remainder into this morning's bounce. Was a day too early buying NOR, but feel more comfortable holding after this morning's action. Missed CAI and FBR - stupid.