daytrade diaries... august 20 part 2

Half-time round-up:

Strong US futures and a rally in China couldn't keep local shares in positive territory this morning after a mixed bag of profit reports.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 4 points or 0.1% at 4369, well off its morning high of 4425. There were big gains for DOW, QBE, AMP and BXB after reporting but significant losses for ASX, LLC, AGK, MIG and MOF among others.

Helping sentiment was a 1.2% bounce in Shanghai in volatile trade and Dow futures advancing to a healthy +61. Also ahead: Japan's Nikkei, up 0.74% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng at +1.4%.

Australia's energy sector was again strong, rising 1.5%. IT rose 1.8% and industrials were up 0.4%. Gold futures were marginally softer at $941.80.

Been a mixed bag here as well. Nice run on MOL from the open. Had a lot of fun buying CHB twice in the low 19s and selling in the 20s. Tiny scalp on WES and a decent bounce trade in BKN. Recently added ALS on bounce potential. Bought SRL and CXP because they are near the lower band of their uptrend channels but overpaid for both.

Potential overnight holds: If AWE holds its 2.40 support I'm tempted to add at the close purely because it's likely to open higher tomorrow unless the oil price really collapses. Also like PIO, QBE and BXB.