daytrade diaries... september 25 part 2

Half-time round-up:

Buying in the big four banks after takeover news helped the ASX trim its losses this morning.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 15 points or 0.32% at 4685 but much improved after hitting a low of 4639 in the first 40 minutes of trade. Financial stocks led the reversal after news that ANZ will buy out ING's share of their wealth management and life insurance joint venture for $1.9 billion.

The financials x-property-trust sector rose 1% against the market trend this morning. Miners were hit hard by overnight falls in commodity prices - metals & mining fell 1.8%, gold 2% and materials 1.6%.

Asian markets slumped. The Nikkei lost 2.89%, Hong Kong 1.03% and Shanghai 0.63%. Dow futures were neutral at +3. Crude oil futures inched higher, up more than 30 cents to $60.37.

Frantic start to the morning here. Too many bounce candidates to trade and I charged around like a kid in a candy store and ended up with a lot less in the shopping basket than the market offered. Complete fills in EHL and CDU near their lows would have been lucrative but you don't see much profit on 809 CDU shares and 4295 EHL... Skinny profit on SGX and solid gains on NWH and LNG. Profitable but should have been much better.

Potential overnight holds: With global markets looking skittish, I'll wait for Monday before adding. For the brave: capital raisings for VPG and AWB have been well received. BAU and SAR may also have legs next week.