Thanks Oscar and morning crew.
Half-time round-up:
The ASX hit a fresh two-year low before mounting a partial recovery after the Federal Reserve triggered further falls on Wall Street overnight.
The ASX 200 touched 5544, its lowest level since December 2016, before paring a 36-point loss to just six points or 0.1% a 5575 mid-session. The decline was a fraction of the falls on US markets after the Fed cut its economic growth expectations for next year. The S&P 500 tumbled 1.54% after earlier being up roughly the same amount ahead of the Fed's decision to raise its key rate for the fourth time this year while signalling possible trouble ahead.
“The big takeaway for markets is that the Fed lowered its growth and inflation forecasts,” Matthews Bartolini, head of SPDR Americas research at State Street Global Advisors, told MarketWatch. “The Fed is talking out of two sides of its mouth, and that just creates more uncertainty. It’s telling the market it thinks growth will slow in the future while raising its forecast for unemployment in 2020, signaling they think there will be economic turmoil just 18 months from now.”
Here, rallies in utilities +1.4%, consumer staples +1.1% and consumer discretionary +0.2% were cancelled out by declines in gold stocks -1.9%, metals & mining -1.1% and industrials -1%.
The mood here was improved by an up-swing in US futures. S&P 500 futures were recently ahead 8.75 points or 0.35%. In Asia, China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.38%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.42% andJapan's Nikkei 0.91%.
Gold futures were lately off $8.20 or 0.65%at US$1,248.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.06 US cents.
Good to see our market showing some resilience around these levels. Wall Street has this week offered ample reasons for a breakdown to fresh closing lows, but the little Aussie battler is standing its ground. So far. Could be the appeal of our defensives? Certainly they're doing best today. Trading: the most profitable session of the week, which is a modest claim by any measure. Been a tough one. Got KDR just above the low for four pips. MMJ was better still, due to the leverage - bigger buy, bigger profit. PAB offered another example of how announcements are getting sold into this month - sentiment just isn't there.
