Afternoon trading November 14

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Energy stocks steered the share market lower for a second day after crude oil made history for all the wrong reasons overnight.

The ASX 200 fell 68 points or 1.2% to 5767, extending the index's two-day loss beyond 170 points and erasing two weeks of gains. The energy sector dropped 2.7% to its lowest level since mid-April after US crude declined for a record 12th straight session. The losing streak is the longest since West Texas Intermediate began trading in 1983 and follows the White House's decision to allow waivers for eight countries to continue to import oil from Iran despite the reintroduction of US sanctions.

“The US started this mess by sanctioning Iran, then pulled all the teeth at the 11th hour," Matt Badiali, senior research analyst at Banyan Hill Research told MarketWatch. "Iran is still producing and selling, which means there is too much oil in the market.”

Telecoms, a traditional defensive, was the only sector to rise this morning, gaining 1%. Metals & mining shed 1.7%, consumer staples 1.5% and financials 1.2%.

A mixed morning across Asian markets saw China's Shanghai Composite fade 0.43% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.44%, while Japan's Nikkei added 0.49%. S&P 500 futures were recently ahead 5.25 points or 0.19%.

Crude oil futures eased another 15 cents or 0.27% this morning to US$55.54 a barrel. Gold futures improved $2.30 or 0.19%to US$1,203.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying 72.25 US cents.



Trading: brutal few days for select biotechs, with FTT following POH to the slaughterhouse. Hope none here were caught out. Commiserations to holders. I butchered the intraday trade in POH on Monday, but nailed FTT this morning for a regulation pip. Watching BIT but have not had a clear buy signal since missing the opening low. (NB: one man's buy signal is another's red flag. My flag collection is fuller than my trading account.)