Thanks Endless and morning crew. Hope all is well with Oscar.
Half-time round-up:
A second day of gains saw the repair work on the ASX continue following last week's steep correction.
The ASX 200 edged up four points or 0.1% to 5913 after yesterday logging its strongest gain in seven months. At its intraday peak, today's rally moved the benchmark index more than 150 points clear of last week's four-month low.
Health stocks led the advance, adding 1.25%, followed by industrials +1.2%, IT +0.3% and consumer staples +0.3%. Gold stocks lost 2.1% and metals & mining 0.9%.
Overnight, Wall Street extended its post-correction rebound into a fifth session with a rise of 1.21% on the S&P 500. S&P 500 futures were recently ahead 1.75 points or 0.06%.
"The mood across financial markets continued to brighten Thursday," IG's Ilya Spivak told Fairfax. "Global shares advanced, epitomising a broad-based recovery in sentiment-geared assets, while top anti-risk alternatives like US Treasury bonds declined. Tellingly, the US dollar also faced renewed selling pressure, hinting that ebbing worries about an aggressive Fed rate hike cycle are giving way."
Trade in Asia was dampened by the start of Lunar New Year holidays. Markets in China, Hong Kong and South Korea were among those closed. Japan's Nikkei increased 1%.
Crude oil futures improved 11 cents or 0.18% this morning to US$61.45 a barrel. Gold futures tacked on $1.60 or 0.12% at US$1,356.90 an ounce. The dollar was buying 79.39 US cents.
Been a good week for the direction of the market. A base has been built and the panic has passed. Barring surprises, the XJO should push back into the 6000s next week. However, trading volumes may be depressed by Asian holidays. The spec end is in recovery, but may need some new themes to really get things moving. FWIW I've found trades hard to come by this week. Been my slowest week in several months. Got one trade today out of IVX, but it was subsistence stuff. Where's the jam?
