Thanks Oscar and anyone still awake. Market seems to have a Thanksgiving hangover.
Half-time round-up:
The share market retreated as Friday's soft close on Wall Street overshadowed firming US equity futures and a rebound in crude from 13-month lows.
The ASX 200 hit 5671 before paring its decline to 36 points or 0.6% at 5681. Resource stocks accounted for much of the weakness after US crude dived almost 8% on Friday to its lowest close since October 2017. Here this morning, the metals & mining sector dropped 2.4%, materials 2% and energy 1.9%. The I.T. sector added 0.6% and gold +0.1%.
West Texas Intermediate crude welcomed a new week with a tentative recovery, lately up 21 cents or 0.42% to US$50.63 a barrel.That helped boost S&P 500 futures 8.25 points or 0.31% ahead of the resumption of regular trade tonight following Thursday's holiday and Friday's thinly-traded shortened session.
China's Shanghai Composite improved 0.1%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.69% andJapan's Nikkei 0.57%.
Gold futures drifted 20 cents or 0.02%to US$1,223 an ounce. The dollar was buying 72.25 US cents.
Trading: the market appeared to run out of puff ten minutes into the session. I guess traders are waiting to see if Friday's down session in the US was legit or a holiday anomaly attributable to the absence of participants. We'll find out tonight. I struggled for ideas, but eventually took SYA and a tiddler too thinly traded to mention.
