Australian shares were little changed at lunchtime despite a surprise fall in unemployment.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 1 point or 0.02% at 4637 as gains for the big banks balanced minor losses in the mining sector. Financial stocks rallied 0.3% this morning. Also strong were telecoms +0.7%, utilities +0.5%, gold +0.3% and industrials +0.3%. The mining sector slipped 0.2%.
Unemployment fell 0.1% to 5.7% last month, bolstering the prospects for another interest rate rise when the RBA next meets in February. Economists had expected unemployment to rise to 5.8%.
Also adding to the case for more rate rises was an increase in consumer inflationary expectations. The Melbourne Institute survey of consumer inflationary expectations showed a rise of 0.4% to 3.6% this month. "Barring any major shocks, this month's jump in inflationary expectations appears to pay the way for a further rate hike in February 2010," said research fellow at the Melbourne Institute, Sam Tsiaplias.
Elsewhere, Investec Australia warned that the price of gold could finish the year near US$1,000 an ounce. "We feel that given the usual thin liquidity at this time of year, it is possible that gold could see a sell-off taking it closer to $US1000 by year end," it said in a daily note.
Asian markets were mostly higher. Shanghai rallied 0.81% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.91% but Japan's Nikkei was flat at -0.05%. Dow futures were a mildly bullish +26.
The spot gold price ignored Investec and rallied $5 this morning to $1,134.20 an ounce. Crude oil futures also recovered some overnight losses, up 30 cents at $71.16 a barrel.
Ipod, I grinned at your TRH trade - I had exactly the same trade, in 46, out 50 for the trade of the morning. Also rode the quick opening spikes on FGL and CPU. Bailed on SUN for brokerage when it stalled in the starting gate - should have held on. Grabbed MRE when it fell back to support. Disappointments this morning: narrowly missing ADN at 30.5; failing to press the buy button on FAS at 7.4.
