Afternoon trading October 24

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares hovered near six-month lows after a slump in crude oil knocked energy stocks down to levels last seen in June.

The ASX 200 traded both sides of break-even before reaching the halfway mark 14 points or 0.2%weaker at 5829. The benchmark index ended yesterday just above last week's six-month closing low at 5837.

The energy sector led the way south, falling 2% after US crude shed 4% overnight after Saudi Arabia pledged to increase production. West Texas Intermediate crude this morning bounced three cents or 0.04% this morning to US$66.46 a barrel.

Also weak were metals & mining -1.4%, materials -1.3% and I.T. -0.7%. The financials sector rallied 0.1%, health 1.1% and gold 2.1%.

Today's weakness continued a rough couple of weeks for global markets. The S&P 500 in the US last night declined 0.55% to its twelfth loss in fourteen sessions. S&P 500 futures were recently down 5.75 points or 0.21%.

"There's been a general flight to safety in global markets over the past 24 hours, adding to the bearish sentiment that's been mounting for several weeks," IG Markets' Kyle Rodda told Fairfax. "The risks remain the same and there wasn't an event to precipitate the sell-off. It apparently began in the Asian session, after Chinese equities pared the gains it had added over the previous two trading sessions, then swept through European and North American markets as the day unfolded. Haven assets have caught a bid, the most pertinent of which are US Treasuries and gold."

Asian markets edged higher. China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.11%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.54% andJapan's Nikkei 0.07%.

Gold futures eased $1.70 or 0.14%to US$1,235.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying 70.89 US cents.

Wild market. Every day another bolter. Some of the heat is coming out of the early runners. Traded BIT twice off the lows, ANP once. Looked at BD1 late yesterday, debated and decided against the overnight hold - stupid, stupid, stupid...