Afternoon trading December 1

Thanks @shovel40, @Fiji1, @Patterns and morning crew.

Half-time wrap:

The share market gave up much of its gains for the week as a near two-year high for the Dow failed to dissuade institutional investors from unwinding some of yesterday's end-of-month "window dressing".

The ASX 200 dropped 28 points or 0.4% by mid-session as all 11 sectors retreated. The decline reversed half of yesterday's 52-point gain and brought the index back within 20 points of where it started the week.

Newmont and Goodman Group were the only heavyweights of the ASX 20 to improve. Telstra, Coles and Woolworths were the biggest drags at the top end. Bulk metal miners stocks pared their falls late morning after a measure of Chinese factory activity (the second this week) came in stronger than expected.

Cooling inflation helped the Dow jump 1.47% overnight to its strongest close since January 2022.


Personal trading: Christmas seems to have come early this year - and not in a good way. Aside from a couple of outliers, the market has been slow as mud these last two sessions. Trading volumes becoming a problem once more. I got something from CXU from yesterday and am slowing easing out of another. No buys so far this morning.