Afternoon trading January 29

Thanks Oscar - good to have you back.


Half-time round-up:

Shares stumbled into a holiday-shortened week in reverse gear as traders fretted about global growth and the results of the Royal Commission into financial services.

The ASX 200 slumped 38 points or 0.7% to 5868 mid-session as the financial sector shed 1.7% ahead of the release on Friday of recommendations from the Royal Commission.The health sector shed 2% as ResMed fell heavily for a second day after its second-quarter results missed expectations. Cushioning the market from deeper losses were gains of 3.5% in gold stocks, 3.3% in telecoms and 2.1% in metals & mining.

US stocks retreated overnight after earnings misses from bellwether stocks Caterpillar and Nvidia heightened concerns about the impact of the US-China trade war. The S&P 500 lost 0.78%.

“I view this as a cause for concern," Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco, told Reuters. "It’s not a crisis, but it’s likely to be a few more canaries in the coal mine because there is going to be a significant cohort of stocks that are likely to be impacted by the U.S.-China trade war.”

US futures continued to deteriorate this morning, with S&P 500 futures lately off 11.75 points or 0.44%. China's Shanghai Composite declined 0.29%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.6% andJapan's Nikkei 1.15%.

Crude oil futures rebounded 17 cents or 0.33% this morning to US$52.16 a barrel. Gold futures eased $1.20 or 0.1%to US$1,309.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.45 US cents.

 

Trading: some hefty prangs this morning - VRC, E2E, ECX, JAT, VHT, RMD, IPL. The gap down in RMD was too tempting to resist. Didn't get the bottom or the top, but took out enough of the middle for a decent wage. Small dabble in E2E. JRV came good from last week.