Afternoon trading July 23

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Soft US equity futures conspired with a dour end to last week on Wall Street to drive the ASX firmly lower this morning.

The ASX 200 fell 56 points or 0.9% to 6230, reversing more than two days of gains on the local market. Slim rallies in energy stocks +0.4% and gold stocks +0.2% were dwarfed by declines in industrials -1.1%, financials -0.9% and materials -1%. Market heavyweight BHP lost more than 1% after revealing it faces a class action over the collapse of a tailings dam at its part-owned Samarco mine in Brazil.

US equity futures turned negative after President Trump confirmed in an interview his willingness to slap tariffs on all Chinese imports if necessary to force concessions.

"The hope is that this bluster is a negotiation tactic that will be watered down during negotiations but increasingly it looks difficult to duck trade blowback," Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank, told CNBC. "Trade war risks are not likely to dissipate like water off a duck's back; but instead it could be a slow burn and mounting risk with markets likely to have outbursts of risk off."

S&P 500 futures were recently off 5.55 points or 0.2%. On Friday, the S&P 500 dipped 0.09% in lacklustre trade. This morning China's Shanghai Composite edged up 0.25%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.13% and Japan's Nikkei 1.3%.

Crude oil futures eased 18 cents or 0.26% this morning to US$68.08 a barrel. Gold futures improved 70 cents or 0.06% to US$1,231.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying 74.17 US cents.



Trading: caught HUB when it dipped below $13, but hoped for a more vigorous rebound than seen so far. Still holding, waiting.