Thanks Oscar and morning crew. Many thanks to @babysteps forfilling in here yesterday. Great job.
Half-time round-up:
A mixed bag of profit results kept a lid on Aussie shares this morning despitestrong leads from the US.
The ASX 200 stumbled out of the blocks and never really gained traction, falling four points or 0.1% to 6075 by mid-session. The markethas been stuck around these levels since last week's explosive rally stalledjust below 6100 on Thursday.
The prospects for a breakout this morning looked good afterWall Street closed overnight at its highest level of the year. The S&P 500 puton 1.29% after lawmakers thrashed out a tentative deal to avoid anothergovernment shutdown and as trade talks with China entered a second day. Here,pre-market futures predicted a rise of nearly 30 points.
So what went wrong? The health sector was the biggest drag,falling 1.7% as investors thumbed down biotech giant CSL's half-year earnings.Shares in CSL fell 2.6% to a six-week low despite beating profit expectationsand lifting its full-year guidance.
Other companies to feel the big stick after reporting thismorning included Carsales.com, down 5%,and automotive specialist Bapcor, down 8.8%. Betting operator
But not all was gloom. Tabcorp reversed early falls to trade flat. And there were solid rises for BeachEnergy, Computershare and Virgin Australia, which delivered its strongesthalf-year result in 11 years.
However, the greatest obstacle to a major advance today was thefact CBA traded without its dividend. Our indexes are heavily weighted towardsthe big banks, so a 3% decline in CBA went a long way to negating gainselsewhere. The I.T. sector put on 1.8%, gold stocks 1.5%, energy 1.1% and industrials 0.8%.
The mood on Asian markets was broadly upbeat on hopes that China will strike a deal to beat a March 2 deadline for the imposition of further US tariffs on imports. While China's Shanghai Composite opened flat, Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged up 0.26% andJapan's Nikkei added 1.31%. S&P 500 futures also looked promising, recently up 7.25 points or 0.26%.
Crude oil futures advanced another 50 cents or 0.94% this morning to $US53.60 a barrel. Gold futures were flat at $US1,314 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.08 US cents.
Trading: missed XTD - twice - but caught EXP near the lows. Also scalped MYQ. Solid morning.
