Afternoon trading Nov 27

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share market briefly regained 6000 this morning before turning negative as US equity futures soured.

The ASX 200 hit 6009 in the first hour before fading to a loss of two points or less than 0.1% at 5981 at the halfway mark. Falls in telecoms -0.8%, gold stocks -0.7% and metals & mining -0.4% offset rallies in health stocks +0.8%, utilities +0.9% and industrials +0.5%.

Today's temporary advance followed slender gains on Wall Street during Friday's holiday-shortened US session. The S&P 500 edged up 0.21% to close above 2600 for the first time, although volumes were only a third of the recent average as many traders enjoyed an extended Thanksgiving break.

US futures came under mild pressure this morning, with Dow futures lately down 24 points or 0.1% and S&P 500 futures off 2.25 points or 0.09%. In Asia, China's Shanghai Composite lost 0.86%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.5% and Japan's Nikkei 0.25%.

Crude oil futures retreated 25 cents or 0.42% this morning to US$58.70 a barrel. Gold futures slid $1 or 0.1% to US$1,291.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 75.99 US cents.


That Novo Resources report drove a dump-truck through locally-listed Pilbara gold plays. Commiserations to anyone caught up in the bloodshed this morning. Certainly thrown a bucket of cold water on the sector. Pity - been a source of much of the excitement over the last month. Trading: got something out of IPT and a pip from FGF. Traded cautiously while watching to see exactly how ugly the Pilbara fallout was going to be.