Day Trading May 12 afternoon

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share marked looks set to end a choppy week near where it began as a sell-off in bank stocks resumed and US equity futures turned negative.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 56 points or 0.9% lower at 5822, with major drags including the IT sector -1.8%, consumer discretionary -1.7% and energy -1.2%. The benchmark index ended last week at 5837 and tracked sideways this week, with each advance soon unwound.

The financials sector fell 1.2%, ending a tentative two-day recovery since the federal budget announcement of a new levy on Tuesday night. Overnight improvements in commodity prices helped lift gold stocks 2.6%, metals & mining 0.7% and materials 0.2%.

Adding to pressure on the index was a decline in US equity futures. Dow futures were recently off 23 points or 0.11%. S&P 500 futures lost 3.75 points or 0.16%.

A mixed morning in Asia included gains of 0.37% on China's Shanghai Composite and 0.07% on Hong Kong's Hang Seng and a fall of 0.69% on Japan's Nikkei.

Crude oil futures gained five cents or 0.1% this morning to US$47.88 a barrel. Gold futures added $2.30 or 0.19% to US$1,226.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 73.85 US cents.


Been a nothing week and nothing is what I have to show for the morning. I have about 100 or so price alerts set on different stocks and would normally expect a dozen or so to go of in the course of a morning, signalling potential trades. Today none were triggered until 11.30am. That might be a record. This is another way of saying volatility is down down down - grim news for a trader.