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

Thanks @Bowser. and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share market's five-session winning run came under threat from a sharp downturn in iron ore and stronger-than-expected jobs data.

The ASX 200 lost its grip on a two-week high, falling 27 points or 0.4 per cent to 6709. The benchmark index was on the verge of turning positive for the session when news of an unexpected drop in the jobless rate placed a question mark against the likelihood of further rate cuts.

The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate ticked down to 5.2 per cent last month from 5.3 per cent in August. While the headline gain of 14,700 new jobs was in line with expectations, the underlying detail told a stronger tale: the economy created 26,200 full-time positions and shed 11,400 part-time positions. The dollar lurched four-tenths of a cent higher to 67.83 US cents as traders bet that the data strengthened the case for the Reserve Bank leaving rates on hold.

A mixed market was already under pressure from a slump in iron ore miners after China slapped production caps on its top steel-producing city because of pollution concerns. The spot ore price fell 5.4 per cent. BHP and Rio Tinto both slid 2.3 per cent. Fortescue dropped 2.7 per cent to a six-week low.

The high-flying tech sector slid for a second day following damning broker reports from UBS on buy-now-pay-later leaders Afterpay and Z1P. Afterpay skidded 5.8 per cent to a three-week low and Z1P gave up 9.1 per cent. WiseTech shares dived more than 10 per cent after Chinese research company J Capital accused the company of overstating profits and exaggerating revenues.

Health giant CSL hit a new record following yesterday's well-received AGM. The share price reached $258.78 before paring its gain to 0.1 per cent at $253.28. Cochlear eased 1.6 per cent.

Fund manager IOOF Holdings surged 7.2 per cent to its highest level since December after announcing it had negotiated a better price to buy ANZ's pension assets. Gold miner Northern Star fell 7.3 per cent after announcing quarterly production figures.

What's hot today and what's not:

Hot today: shares in Northern Cobalt briefly tripled this morning after the mining junior announced it had pounced on highly-prospective ground in Alaska. Northern Cobalt has signed a $US20 million deal with Canada's Millrock Resources to drill the brownfields Goodpaster project. The project surrounds Northern Star's Pogo gold mine, which has produced more than four million ounces of the precious metal. Drilling will start next year. Shares in Northern Cobalt surged from four cents to 12 cents before paring gains to 125 per cent.

Not today: bank stocks have so far weathered falling rates and a slowing economy, but Bank of Queensland provided an insight into the growing challenges after announcing a 14 per cent decline in full-year cash earnings. The bank blamed slowing credit demand, lower interest rates and rising regulatory costs for the disappointing result. New Managing Director and CEO George Frazis said he expected this year to be "difficult", with cash earnings set to be lower still. The bank's shares dropped 1.7 per cent.

Asian markets edged higher. China's Shanghai Composite and Japan's Nikkei both rose 0.1 per cent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.6 per cent. S&P 500 index futures were recently down one points or 0.1 per cent.

Turning to commodity markets, Brent crude futures retreated 39 cents or 0.7 per cent this morning to $US59.03 a barrel. Gold futures declined $1.80 or 0.1 per cent to $US1,492.20 an ounce.

Trading: had one of those incredibly busy mornings but absolutely none of it involved trading. Finally got time to draw breath and focus.