daytrade diaries... february 11 part 2

Half-time round-up:

Australian shares rebounded this morning as a surprise fall in unemployment confirmed the strength of the local economy.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead 39 points or 0.88% at 4552 as the big banks and miners recovered from yesterday's weak session. Energy shares led the risers, up 2.1% this morning. Most sectors were positive but a soft earnings result from Telstra dragged the telecoms sector down 3.5%.

The unemployment rate fell in January for a fourth straight month. The jobless rate eased to 5.3% from 5.5%, confounding economists' expectations of a rise to 5.6%. The economy added 52,700 jobs - the biggest monthly rise in three years.

"Clearly it's another big surprise," JP Morgan economist Stephen Walters told Fairfax. "It looks pretty clear the jobless rate has peaked."

In other economic news, Australians expect inflation to soften this month but they expect more interest rate rises, according to a survey. The median expected inflation rate slipped to 3.2% from 3.5% last month, the Melbourne Institute survey of consumer inflationary expectations revealed.

Asian markets shrugged off a soft lead from Wall Street. Japan's Nikkei was closed but Shanghai advanced 0.33% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.87%. Dow futures were recently at a bullish +42.

The spot gold price recovered most of its overnight losses this morning, climbing more than $4 to $1,075.30 an ounce.
Crude oil futures also moved higher, adding 27 cents to trade recently at $74.77 a barrel.


Hasn't been my morning. Missed some good trading opportunities and completed only one at a loss. Was uncharacteristically hesitant buying into VIL and was stopped out within a minute. Comically bad but could have been a lot worse if I ignored the stop-loss.