Afternoon trading July 27

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share market had a decade-high close within its grasp as a US$10.8 billion payday for BHP lit a fire under the local market.

The ASX 200 surged 54 points or 0.9% to 6299 as BHP put on 2.2% on news the company has sold its US shale oil and gas holdings to BP. A close above 6286 for the benchmark index would be the strongest since 2008.

The heavyweight materials sector advanced 1%, supported by gains in IT +1.6%, utilities +1.3%, industrials +1.3% and financials +1%. Gold stocks slipped 0.3% and consumer staples 0.3%.

Domestic factors overshadowed a mixed close on Wall Street overnight as crashing Facebook shares knocked 1.01% off the Nasdaq and 0.3% off the S&P 500, but left the Dow up 0.44%. S&P 500 futures were recently unchanged.

Asian markets were mixed but little changed. China's Shanghai Composite dropped 0.3% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.42%. Japan's Nikkei edged up 0.22%.

Crude oil futures gave back six cents or 0.09% this morning to US$69.55 a barrel. Gold futures eased $2.50 or 0.2% to US$1,232.80 an ounce. The dollar was buying 73.85 US cents.



Trading: more action at the big end of the market than down among the minnows lately. Beginning to think I need to brush up on my mid-cap trading ploys - used to do a lot of that, but gave it up when the specs were delivering. Had a a disappointingly peaceful morning, largely untroubled by price alerts. Placed plenty of orders, but no hits.