Afternoon trading Oct 10

Thanks Oscar and morning crew. Thanks Moderators for clarifying the posting rules following yesterday's confusion.


Half-time round-up:

The ASX shrugged off a weak US session overnight to inch towards a possible hat-trick of advances for the first time in almost two months.

The benchmark index, the ASX 200, overcame early losses to reach the halfway mark unchanged at 5739. The index has been stuck in a narrow trading range since May and has not managed three consecutive wins together since mid-August. This morning, gains in gold stocks +1.1%, utilities +0.5% and materials +0.1% were offset by declines in energy -0.6%, health -0.2% and financials -0.1%.

China's Shanghai Composite eased 0.14%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.07% and Japan's Nikkei 0.3%. Dow futures were recently ahead 23 points or 0.1%.

Crude oil futures improved 12 cents or 0.24% this morning to US$49.70 a barrel. Gold futures gained $4.80 or 0.37% to US$1,289.80 an ounce. The dollar was buying 77.86 US cents.


Trading: nailed early opps in YOJ and FPL. Mistimed EUC and exited for brokerage.