Afternoon trading Jan 23

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares look set to break a five-session losing run after Wall Street rallied on news of a deal to end a federal government shutdown.

The ASX 200 broke its recent string of mid-morning fades by holding its gains through to lunchtime. The benchmark index hit the halfway point 41 points or 0.7% stronger at 6033 after yesterday closing below 6000 for the first time in five weeks.

The energy sector jumped 1.6% after OPEC announced production curbs will remain until the end of the year. The financial sector reversed yesterday's decline, gaining 0.9%. IT stocks rallied 1.3% and health 1.1%.

Overnight, the S&P 500 put on 0.44% after Congress approved a stopgap bill to reopen the government until February 8. S&P 500 futures were recently up two points or 0.07%.

Markets in Asia caught the updraft. China's Shanghai Composite added 0.48%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.58% and Japan's Nikkei 0.78%.

Crude oil futures gained 29 cents or 0.46% this morning to US$63.66 a barrel. Gold futures advanced $4.10 or 0.31% to US$1,336 an ounce. The dollar was buying 80.27 US cents.



Nice rebound at the big end of the market - the first sign of real buying interest in two weeks. However, things were predictably cautious in Spec Land. Bit like the morning after, with a few of us nursing financial hangovers after the parallel unravelling of the crypto/blockchain and lithium bull runs. Yesterday's ZYB fiasco was one of those jolts to speculator confidence that may take a few sessions/weeks to overcome. ZYB is grinding lower again today. I began the repair work to my trading account with a couple of pips from AAJ but otherwise held fire. Would like to see if today's market strength is a genuine reversal or a temporary blip in a developing downtrend. It's a difficult market right now - not the time for heroics.