Afternoon trading August 2

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share market pared two days of gains despite another strong morning for US equity futures after Apple hit a record in after-market trade.

The ASX 200 fell 31 points or 0.5% to 5741 by the halfway mark as soft overnight commodity prices weighed on resource stocks. The metals & mining sector dropped 1.3%, energy 1.1%, materials 1% and gold 0.4% after crude came off a two-month high overnight and iron ore and copper logged modest falls. Offsetting losses were rises in industrials +0.7% and consumer discretionary +0.3%.

US equity futures rallied for a second day after Apple's quarterly update, posted after the close of regular trade this morning, calmed concerns over iPhone sales. Dow futures were recently up 46 points or 0.21%, Nasdaq futures 43 points or 0.73% and S&P 500 futures 2 points or 0.08%. Apple shares surged 6.3% in after-market trade.

China's Shanghai Composite retreated 0.08%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.23% and Japan's Nikkei 0.45%.

Crude oil futures gave up 48 cents or 0.98% this morning to US$48.68 a barrel. Gold futures declined $7 or 0.55% to US$1,272.40 an ounce. The dollar was buying 79.5 US cents.


Drowsy morning. Bravo if you made a quid. I squeezed beer money out of ARL, but otherwise failed to find much of interest.