Day Trading May 3 afternoon

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Australian shares declined for a third session following heavy falls in iron ore and base metals overnight and as a trading update from NAB failed to arrest a slump in the big banks.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 30 points or 0.5% lower at 5862, with the gold sector down 2.1%, metals & mining 1.3% and financials 0.9%. The index closed at a two-year high on Monday, but has since given up more than 90 points amid speculation that the big banks were overbought and due to retrace. NAB opened strongly this morning but quickly eased to a gain of 0.3%.

The dollar fell 1.4% overnight and was lately buying 74.13 US cents after iron ore dived 7% on fears of a slowdown in China. Base metals also saw heavy selling.

"Most base metal prices were torched in Wednesday LME trading, with spot copper, nickel and zinc prices dropping by more than 3 percent on the day," Tony Farnham, economic strategist at Patersons, told CNBC.

China's Shanghai Composite shed 0.29% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.5%. Japan's Nikkei remained closed for a public holiday. Dow futures were recently ahead 28 points or 0.13%.

Crude oil futures retreated 12 cents or 0.25% this morning to US$47.70 a barrel. Gold futures slid $7.40 or 0.59% to US$1,241.10 an ounce.


Trading: some days being a trader is essentially hanging around doing nothing and occasionally getting smacked in the face with a fence paling. The day begins in optimism - 'Look at all these great set-ups!' - drifts into disappointment - 'No one's buying, why aren't they buying?' - and ends in bitterness - 'I give up. I'm an idiot. They're idiots. We're all idiots.' I was at the top of the queue in IAM at 3c before it bounced - one dump away from a fill. Why, Lord, why? I'm not a bad man - I'm nice to animals, I call my mother. Why must you test me? Instead I picked up a load of old cobblers that has hardly traded. Won't name names - why share the misery? - they have been entirely profit-free so far. Did I mention I'm not drinking? Don't hold me to it. Every man has limits.