Afternoon trading Sep 1

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The ASX launched into Spring with a third day of tentative gains as Chinese factory activity again defied expectations of a downturn.

The ASX 200 rallied 20 points in early action before paring its rise to eight points or 0.2% at 5722 at the halfway mark. The gold sector bounced 1.7% as the precious metal hit an 11-month high. Gold futures rallied another $2.60 or 0.2% this morning to US$1,324.80 an ounce.

The metals & mining sector rose 0.4% after a private measures of Chinese factory activity strengthened. Caixin's August manufacturing PMI came in at 51.6, compared to 51.1 in July and predictions of a reading at 50.9.

China's Shanghai Composite put on 0.32%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.28% and Japan's Nikkei 0.2%. Dow futures were recently ahead 24 points or 0.11%.

The biggest drags on the local market were the consumer discretionary sector, off 0.5% as Harvey Norman fell for a second day, and consumer staples, down 0.1%.

Crude oil futures retreated 24 cents or 0.51% this morning to US$46.99 a barrel. The dollar was buying 79.54 US cents.


Thought for the day: what happened to flash traders on the ASX? Go back two years and if you tried to buy at the market sell price you were gazumped nine times out of ten and left holding a worthless part-fill - the flash traders jumped in front and took out most of the sell queue to try to force you to fill the rest of your order by buying the same shares from them a pip higher. Not so much with the specs, but the mid/large caps. I don't see that any more. The authorities seemed disinterested/helpless, so I'd guess it just wasn't profitable enough? Anyway, good riddance. The game is always changing. The funds will be working on some new way to screw the little guy. Trading: scalped something out of JRV and closed out SUD from the other day.