Afternoon trading October 9

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares fell to their lowest level in nearly four months amid a second day of widespread selling.

The ASX 200 was down 61 points or 1% at 6039 mid-session after earlier touching 6035, the index's weakest reading since mid-June. At its nadir this morning, the index had shed 150 points in two sessions as global markets adapt to rising US interest rates, ructions in the bond market and a deepening trade war. Domestic shares are also dealing with a declining dollar and the fallout from the Royal Commission into banking.

Today's retreat lowered all sectors except utilities, +0.3%. Hit hardest were IT -3%, health -3% and industrials -1.4%. Financials and materials both dropped 0.7%.

Asian markets continued yesterday's decline despite a mixed close on Wall Street overnight, where a slender rise for the Dow was offset by a narrow loss on the S&P 500 and a solid decline on the Nasdaq. China's Shanghai Composite gave up 0.11%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.44% and Japan's Nikkei 1.22%. S&P 500 futures were recently off three points or 0.1%.

Crude oil futures edged up a cent or 0.01% this morning to US$74.30 a barrel. Gold futures bounced $4.80 or 0.4% to US$1,193.40 an ounce. The dollar was buying 70.8 US cents.



This sell-off accelerated quickly. Australia/Asia clearly not a popular stop on the global money-go-round at present. Support coming up at around 6000? Trading: since my focus is buying retreats, I get busier when markets hit reverse. Scalped GMV, BUB and CUV. Still holding PAR and SYB.