Afternoon trading January 9

Thanks Oscar and morning crew. Glad HC seems to have resolved this morning's technical issues - got unusable there for a while.


Half-time round-up:

A strong week for the local share market continued with a third session of gains as optimism over US-China trade talks buoyed global markets.

The ASX 200 rallied 58 points or 1% to 5781, extending the index's gains for the week beyond 160 points. Global sentiment turned on a dime on Friday night after central bankers soothed concerns of a dramatic slowdown in global growth and as attention turned to this week's trade negotiations between the world's largest two economies. Sentiment this morning was boosted by news that talks will extend into an unscheduled third day, raising hopes that the two nations are close to settling their differences.    

"The sense of cautious optimism in markets remains... Several of the panic-inducing issues that drove the bearish activity in markets in the last quarter of 2018 appear to be progressing positively," Kyle Rodda of IG Markets told Fairfax. "But it’s understood that in the case of almost all these matters, ranging from slowing global-growth, to the trade-war, to Brexit and to Fed policy, that there is much more to unfold."

A broad rally saw gains across the local bourse, ranging from a 2.2% rise in energy stocks to a 0.3% upward blip in consumer discretionary. Notable moves included a 1% gain in the Small Ords, 1.4% in industrials, 0.7% in materials and 0.6% in financials.

US futures remained upbeat following a 0.97% advance on the S&P 500 overnight. S&P 500 futures were recently ahead 11.25 points or 0.44%. China's Shanghai Composite put on 0.57%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.47% andJapan's Nikkei 1.05%.

Crude oil futures jumped 59 cents or 1.19% this morning to US$50.37 a barrel. Gold futures regained $1.70 or 0.13%at US$1,287.60 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.58 US cents.

 

 

Trading: frustrating morning. Missed AC8 by half a pip and hesitated too long on NGI. If I was a hunter, the family would go hungry tonight. The problem with a slow market is that if you miss your shot, there may not be another chance. I miss the days when vast herds of mammoths wandered by all day.