Afternoon trading July 18

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

A bumper quarterly from mining giant BHP helped the ASX reverse yesterday's losses as the mood on global markets improved.

The ASX 200 rallied 49 points or 0.8% to 6253 by the session's midpoint, led by gains in metals & mining +2%, materials +1.8% and health +1.3%. Market heavyweight BHP jumped 3.8% after beating production guidance for iron ore, copper and petroleum.  The energy sector remained under pressure, falling 0.6% as crude traded below US$68 a barrel.

Asian markets recovered some of the week's losses after US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell dampened concerns that the US economy may be derailed by the White House's trade policy. China's Shanghai Composite put on 0.33%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.37% and Japan's Nikkei 0.99%. S&P 500 futures were recently ahead 3.5 points or 0.12%.

"The key take away is that trade policy has not yet affected the Fed’s intentions for further gradual hikes," Rodrigo Catril, senior FX strategist at National Australia Bank, told CNBC. "The Fed remains data dependent and the inclusion of the phrase 'for now' provides the bank with some flexibility if it needs to alter the interest rate path ahead."

Crude oil futures slipped 34 cents or 0.5% this morning to US$67.74 a barrel. Gold futures tacked on $1 or 0.08% to US$1,228.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 73.86 US cents.



Wise words from Wonganella this morning. There's rarely very much that's new on the ASX - most of this pursuit is just trading the same old companies as they come back into season. This week it's the turn of cryptos/blockchain. Ride the upswings but don't fall in love with the stocks if you're serious about staying a trader. Trading: intraday speculators in ASN and another too thinly traded to identify here.