Afternoon trading November 23

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares took advantage of a US public holiday overnight to rally for a second day and edge closer to break-even for the week.

The ASX 200 rallied 18 points or 0.3% to 5709 mid-session, within reach of the 5731 mark where the benchmark index started the week. A brutal start to the week saw the index hit a 21-month low on Wednesday before rebounding. 

Consumer stocks and banks led this morning's advance, staples rising 1.2% and financials 0.9%. Utilities gained 0.5% and industrials 0.2%. Telecoms decline 1%, health stocks 0.8% and metals & mining 0.2%.

Yesterday's Thanksgiving holiday in the US offered a circuit-breaker for a tough week on global markets. US share trade was suspended overnight and resumes tonight for a holiday-shortened session ending at 1pm New York time. S&P 500 futures were recently down six points or 0.23% after European markets fell overnight on concerns about Brexit.

A soft morning in Asia saw China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng both down 0.34%. Trade on Japan's Nikkei was suspended for a public holiday.

Crude oil futures dropped 75 cents or 1.37% this morning to US$53.88 a barrel. Gold futures added 30 cents or 0.02%to US$1,228.30 an ounce. The dollar was buying 72.49 US cents.

 

 

If you missed it, you gotta read the FGR Chairman's address this morning. Specifically the second paragraph on p3. Quick summary? Hot Copper is a disgrace. You're all shifty bastards. Sample sentence: "We all know what type of person frequents Hot Copper." He goes on to accuse us of everything from defamation to running a dark web to the Kennedy assassination (NB: if any lawyers are reading, that last bit was a joke). Shame on us. Trading: not a sniff. Doesn't help that CommSec Iress price alerts are still not working properly, despite assurances last night. CommSec insist they have their best people working on it. Oh dear.