Afternoon trading Oct 9

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares marched to a three-week high this morning as US equity futures ticked higher.

The ASX 200 rallied strongly for a second day, rising 43 points or 0.75% to 5754 at the mid-point of the session after earlier touching the index's highest point since September 13. The advance lifted all sectors, with the best returns coming in gold stocks +1.7%, telecoms +1.5% and consumer discretionary +1.1%. The materials sector added 0.8% and financials 0.8%.

Helping sentiment were early indications that Wall Street may be willing to look beyond Friday's weak hurricane-affected US jobs report and fresh tensions on the Korean peninsula. S&P 500 futures were recently up three points or 0.12%. Dow futures were ahead 24 points or 0.11%.

Market liquidity was impacted by public holidays in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea. China's Shanghai Composite resumed trade after a week-long holiday with a gain of 1.14%.

Crude oil futures improved 16 cents or 0.32% this morning to US$49.45 a barrel. Gold futures jumped $7.30 or 0.57% to US$1,282.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 77.7 US cents.


A bullish start to the week carrying the XJO back to what's developed into a stubborn resistance zone. A close around these levels would be the strongest since mid-August. Suspect some of the volume is to do with international money chasing returns while several major Asian bourses are closed. We'll take it. Trading: caught the bounce in GSW and had a dabble in SOR.