day trading feb 3 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Shares fell back for a fourth day in five this week as an early rally petered out and Asian markets gave back some of yesterday's gains.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was nine points or 0.2% weaker at 4258, with financials, consumer stocks and utilities the biggest drag. Resource stocks were mixed, with goldies up and energy stocks and materials unchanged as traders waited for jobs news from the US and a conclusion to Greece's debt negotiations.

"Basically market players will likely take a wait-and-see stance ahead of US payroll data and as Greece has not reached a debt swap deal yet," a senior market analyst at Rakuten Securities told Fairfax.

Most Asian markets edged lower as companies continued to miss earnings targets. Bloomberg said 55% of companies in the MSCI Asian index that have reported earnings since January 9 have under-performed analysts' estimates. Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.21% this morning, Shanghai 0.16% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was flat. Dow futures were recently down nine points or less than 0.1%.

There were promising signs for a pick-up in the domestic economy with the services sector expanding last month at the fastest pace in five months. The AiG/CBA performance of services index increased 2.9 points to 51.9.

"The rate cuts have probably had some positive spin-off for segments of the services struggling against the substantial negative headwinds of the robust Australian dollar, diffident and frugal consumers, and weak business confidence," CBA senior economist John Peters told Fairfax.

Crude oil futures fell 22 cents this morning to US$96.43 a barrel. Spot gold retreated $4.90 to US$1,756.60 an ounce. The dollar was buying US$1.0692.


Another "risk-off" day but pretty mild so far. Oil, gold and the Aussie dollar all weakened this morning. A few runners at the spec end but volumes remain a big problem as participation remains weaker than normal. I'm doing most of my trading in the mid-caps and had a look at CTX and APA this morning. Also bought a micro that is too small/slow to mention here - kind of like the dull kid at school that you only hang out with as a last resort when your real mates aren't doing anything. Don't tell him I said that.