Afternoon trading October 25

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Australian shares slumped more than two per cent into correction territory and a fresh 12-month low as fear swept global markets. 

The ASX 200 dived 127 points or 2.2% to 5702, a level last seen last October. Today's fall extended the market's decline from its late-August peak beyond 10%, the figure traditionally used to classify an official "correction".

The market saw nothing but red, with the heaviest hits landing on consumer discretionary -2.9%, metals & mining -2.9%, health -2.7% and I.T -2.7%. The financial sector gave up 2.2%. Not even gold stocks, a traditional haven escaped the market's big stick, easing 0.2%.

Stocks took their cue from a savage sell-off on Wall Street overnight, where the S&P 500 shed 3.09%, the Dow 608 points or 2.41% and the Nasdaq a hefty 4.43%. The carnage continued this morning on Asian markets. China's Shanghai Composite dropped 2.12%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.99% andJapan's Nikkei 3.45%.

"The fear is palpable in stock markets at the moment as the buying dried up and traders and investors head for the exits," Greg McKenna, markets strategist at McKenna Macro, told Fairfax. .

S&P 500 futures staged a modest rebound, lately up 6.75 points or 0.25%.

Crude oil futures faded 54 cents or 0.81% this morning to US$66.28 a barrel. Gold futures rallied $8.10 or 0.66%to US$1,239.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 70.74 US cents.

Trading: my sort of day. Had ANP, MEM and BIT in my sights pre-market but left the latter alone when the presentation muddied the waters. Pity - it was the pick of the bunch. Pulled a few pips from ANP and MEM in the opening bounce, but got the best return from BAP, which I'd never traded before. Quiet since then.