Afternoon trading July 5

Thanks @shovel40 (great to have you back!), @Fiji1 and morning crew.

Half-time wrap:

Aussie shares drifted lower as a US market holiday robbed the market of direction at the end of a positive week.

The ASX 200 were down 10 points or 0.123 at today's halfway mark. Declines in miners, property trusts and banks outweighed gains in healthcare companies, telcos and energy producers.

Today's minor setback followed a strong session yesterday. The Australian benchmark rallied 1.19% amid growing optimism that a cooldown in the US economy will allow the Federal Reserve to start cutting rates by September. That leap forward put the index on course for a weekly gain of more than 60 points.

Wall Street closed overnight for Independence Day. S&P 500 futures were modestly positive this morning, up less than 0.1% ahead of a holiday-shortened session tonight when the focus will be on monthly employment data.


Personal trading: Struggled to find a ride this morning. Still standing by the roadside with my thumb out. Not a lot of traffic.