Thanks Oscar and morning crew.
Half-time round-up:
A tentative rebound in crude oil helped shares overcome a soft start and weak leads to reach the session midpoint slightly stronger.
The ASX 200 fell as low as 5885 before rebounding more than 40 points to a mid-session gain of six points or 0.1% at 5928. The energy sector was among the leaders, rising 1.2% as US crude oil bounced 49 cents or 0.81% to US$60.68 a barrel after OPEC called for production cuts to keep the market in balance. Also strong this morning were utilities +2%, consumer discretionary +1.1% and industrials +0.5%. The I.T. sector shed 1.4%, financials 0.6% and telecoms 0.5%.
The rebound came as US equity futures strengthened following a losing end to the week on Wall Street. S&P 500 futures were recently ahead ten points or 0.36%. On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 0.92%, setting up our market's soft open.
China's Shanghai Composite opened flat, Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged up 0.16% andJapan's Nikkei 0.17%.
Gold futures improved $2.90 or 0.24%to US$1,211.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 72.31 US cents.
Trading: many more mornings like this one and I'm going to hire someone to stand behind my chair and slap me when I do something stupid. They're going to be busy, so only fit persons need apply. Took POH at the open for an easy pip, then suffered an outbreak of greed (slap) and moved my sell order (slap). Justice came swiftly and I sold within the hour for a loss (slap). Got into SDF too early (slap) and the modest profit from the rebound did not cover the POH loss (slap). Similar story with CUV (slap) - still holding. My head hurts.
