Afternoon trading January 16

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares inched to a fresh two-month high before paring gains amid caution on world markets after the UK parliament rejected the Brexit deal.

The ASX 200 traded both sides of breakeven before edging to a mid-session gain of five points or less than 0.1% at 5819, a level last seen in mid-November. A 0.5% rise in financials counterbalanced a 1.2% fall in materials. Also strong: I.T. +1.3%, telecoms +0.7% and consumer staples +0.7%. Sentiment towards shares here got a boost yesterday from plans by China's central bank to boost the economy.

Elsewhere around the world, markets appeared to be in mild 'risk-off' mode after Theresa May's UK government suffered the largest policy defeat in parliamentary history. US futures were neutral, Asian markets dipped, oil retreated and gold inched higher. 

S&P 500 futures were recently off one point or 0.04%. China's Shanghai Composite gave up 0.17%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.89% andJapan's Nikkei 1.08%.

Crude oil futures shed 23 cents or 0.44% this morning at US$51.88 a barrel. Gold futures put on $1.90 or 0.15%to US$1,290.30 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.91 US cents.

 

 

Trading: a lethargic morning, as others have noted. Bought EXL as a two-three day short-term trade on pullback but paid more than necessary. Also took E2E. Squeezed a skinny profit out of WBT from yesterday before it soured further.