Afternoon trading January 25

Thanks Rockstar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares turned positive for the week as the dollar weakened and the defensive utilities sector hit a four-month high.

The ASX 200 advanced 43 points or 0.7% to 5909 mid-session to erase two days of losses and surpass last week's close at 5880. Utilities was the best of the sectors on the last session of a week when defensive assets have done much of the heavy lifting on the local index, rising 1.6%. Also strong: consumer discretionary +1.3%, energy +1.3% and I.T +1.3%.

The advance came despite a mixed close on Wall Street overnight, where the S&P 500 edged up 0.14% and the Dow lost 0.09% after a key US official said a trade deal with China was not imminent. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the US remains "miles and miles" away from agreement on a host of outstanding issues. S&P 500 futures were recently up 7.5 points or 0.28%.

“The markets are bracing for next week’s events,” Masahiro Ichikawa, senior strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management in Japan, told Reuters. “The U.S.-China trade discussions will provide insight into how talks are progressing, while the British parliamentary voting is a key Brexit event. And there is also the [US] FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] meeting.”

A positive session on Asian markets saw China's Shanghai Composite rise 0.33%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.68% andJapan's Nikkei 0.66%.

Crude oil futures improved 15 cents or 0.28% this morning to US$53.28 a barrel. Gold futures eased 50 cents or 0.04%to US$1,285.40 an ounce. The dollar was buying 70.87 US cents.

 

 

Hate to say, but this is starting to feel like a market with significant problems. Specifically, participation rates. I know it's a Friday and we're still emerging from the Christmas break but spec volumes should be improving by this stage of the month. It's a worry how many set-ups this morning came to nothing for lack of buying. Watched and waited but the trigger-buy never came. Wonder how much of of an impact the real estate downturn is having on retail share trade? In a rising property market, people feel they have spare cash to invest; in a falling market, presumably the opposite applies. Trading: WCN looks the pick of a meagre bunch this morning. Didn't get it. Squeezed a couple of pips out of EUC.