Australian shares pared a strong week after a delay to US tax cuts fuelled a selldown on Wall Street.
The ASX 200 declined 21 points or 0.35% to 6028 by the halfway mark, but remained on course to secure a weekly gain of around 70 points after breaking through the psychologically-significant 6000 level on Tuesday for the first time in nine years. This morning slim gains in consumer discretionary stocks +0.1% and utilities +0.1% were dwarfed by falls in metals & mining -1.8%, IT -0.8% and energy -0.7%.
Wall Street caught a dose of the jitters overnight after Senate Republicans unveiled a plan that would delay corporate tax cuts until 2019. The S&P 500 lost 0.38%.
"Speculation over the US Senate tax bill aiming to delay the corporate tax rate cut to 20 per cent until 2019 provided an additional excuse to sell equities," NAB strategists told Fairfax.
A downbeat morning in Asia saw China's Shanghai Composite fade 0.15%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.01% and Japan's Nikkei 0.75%. Dow futures were recently up five points or 0.03%.
Crude oil futures gave up 14 cents or 0.24% this morning to US$57.03 a barrel. Gold futures eased $1 or 0.08% to US$1,286.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 76.81 US cents.
Nothing much to worry about in the overnight action on Wall Street, imo. The most interesting thing was how quickly the lows were snapped up. Candlestick charters would find a lot to like in the S&P 500 lately. Nice long hammers whenever the index looks like putting in a decent decline. In other words, it appears there is still money on the sidelines waiting for these entry opportunities. I don't think we're done here. Trading: another exceptionally busy morning - echoes of the pre-GFC bull years last decade. Traded SYA three times for two wins, one brokerage. Also SGC, LI3 and POS. Loving these conditions.
