Afternoon trading Jan 25

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Strengthening resource stocks shielded the share market against deeper losses as traders took profits ahead of the Australia Day long weekend.

The ASX 200 fell as much as 25 points in early action before paring its loss to nine points or 0.2% at 6045 as the crumbling US dollar continued to support commodity prices. Gold stocks jumped 2.4%, metals & mining 1%, materials 0.6% and energy 0.4%, offsetting declines in utilities -1.3%, industrials -0.9% and financials -0.3%.

The US dollar touched a three-year low overnight,  boosting the Australian dollar and commodities such as gold, crude, copper and aluminium. The Aussie was lately buying 80.65 US cents. US stocks closed mixed. S&P 500 futures were recently up 1.25 points or 0.04%.

Another mixed morning in Asia saw China's Shanghai Composite up 0.05%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng off 0.18% and Japan's Nikkei off 0.63%.

Crude oil futures rallied another 59 cents or 0.9% this morning to US$66.20 a barrel. Gold futures edged up 50 cents or 0.04% to US$1,361.90 an ounce.



The Trump administration seem happy to let the greenback go lower, which is boosting alternative stores of wealth, such as gold. Also boosting dollar-priced commodities, the Aussie and our miners. Modest profit taking on the XJO this morning, but no evidence that traders are too concerned about the two US sessions to come before the ASX reopens on Monday. Trading: AB1 seemed to offer most of the excitement this morning. I caught one trade but felt I should have done better. Also got something from a part-fill at the low in OKR.