Thanks Oscar and morning crew. Half-time round-up: The share...

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share market's bull run extended into a seventh session and a new five-month high ahead of a Chinese economic update.

The ASX 200 rose 13 points or 0.2% to 5903 by the halfway mark as domestic jobs data beat expectations and traders anticipated a positive outlook from quarterly GDP figures and monthly factory and retail data due out of China at 1pm EST.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.5% last month from 5.6% in August as the number of people working increased by 19,800. Economists had expected growth of around 15,000. The news helped push the dollar up a fifth of a cent to 78.65 US cents.

The ASX 200 moved towards its ninth gain in ten sessions as traders bought IT stocks +1.3%, consumer staples +0.8% and financials +0.6%. A soft session for miners saw the metals & mining sector fall 1.7%, materials 1.1% and gold 1.1%.

The domestic rally follows a long period of sideways action while several global indices broke new ground.

"The breakout higher in the price of ASX 200 shares can be looked at through the lenses of the recent consolidation since June while other global equities were trading to either all-time or multi-decade highs," IG analysts Tyler Yell and Chris Weston told Fairfax. "While concern will doubtlessly be presented as to the market being overbought, investors and traders should look to the recent 2 per cent rise over the last five sessions to lead to a series of higher-lows on the price charts to see if the rally will extend. Let's not forget that the ASX 200 has gained for six straight days and we have only seen one period in 2017, back in May, when the local index has closed up for seven straight days, so a pullback and some modest mean reversion continue to become a higher probability."

China's Shanghai Composite turned negative ahead of today's economic update, lately down 0.29%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.04% and Japan's Nikkei 0.47%. Dow futures were recently up two points or 0.01%.

Crude oil futures edged up six cents or 0.12% this morning to US$52.10 a barrel. Gold futures slid $1.70 or 0.13% to US$1,281.30 an ounce.


Terrific trading conditions. I made good on EHX from yesterday and caught the bounce in YOJ for a second day.