Australian stocks drifted lower this morning as the market digested mixed earnings results and waited for leads from Europe and the U.S.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 14 points or 0.3% at 4547 as buying in defensive sectors failed to counter selling in cyclical stocks. Rising sectors were led by telecoms, up 0.6%, as Telstra recovered a little of last week's post-earnings losses. The financial and mining sectors were both lower.
Bendigo Bank rallied nearly 5% this morning after doubling its first half profit. But several other companies reporting this morning lost ground: BSL -3%, CRG - 7.5%, WAN -3% and HSP -4%.
"There's mixed emotions in the market at the moment," a senior investment strategist at AMP Capital told Bloomberg. "It's a tug of war between optimism over the improving macroeconomic backdrop and concern that the period of easy liquidity is coming to an end."
Most Asian markets were closed for New Year holidays but Japan's Nikkei edged 0.2% higher in early trade.
The spot gold price briefly tilted at $1,200 this morning but was recently 20 cents lower at $1,092.20 an ounce. Crude oil futures were 6 cents ahead at $74.19 a barrel.
Another snoozer of a morning in the mid-caps, where I do most of my trading. Geez, I hope the market picks a direction soon - I don't care which way, let's just go somewhere. Managed early scalps in BSL and PMP off their lows.
