Day traders' weekend lounge September 13 - 15

Thanks afternoon crew. I'm signing off for a couple of weeks. Will be back posting on September 30.

@poyndexter has generously raised a hand to post a pre-market open each weekday morning - top fella. Unless I've missed something, we still need volunteers to launch an afternoon thread and an after-market thread each day. Hopefully someone will step up.

Until September 30, good luck to all. Sayonora.


End-of-day summary:

The Australian share market briefly had a record close in its sights before paring its gains from mid-morning.

The ASX 200 finished 24 points or 0.3% ahead after earlier surging 68 points to 8143.6, just six points below last month's all-time high.

The index trimmed its rally as the big banks lost altitude, offsetting a strong day for resource and property stocks. The gold sub-sector jumped 5.22% after the yellow metal broke new ground overnight. Rebounds in crude, iron ore and copper helped other producers.

Today's advance sealed the Australian market's third weekly advance in four since the early-August US recession scare. Overnight, US stocks moved back to within touching distance of former highs as buyers looked ahead to a likely interest rate cut next week. The S&P 500 put on 0.75%.