daytrades april 16 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Regional markets fell back this morning as U.S. futures deteriorated after poorly-received earnings reports from Google and AMD.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 24 points or 0.5% at 4977 after losses in the energy sector -1.3%, property trusts -1.1%, materials -0.7% and metals and mining -0.7%. Gold, health and telecoms were among a handful of sectors to trade positive.

Dow futures were recently down 42 points after shares in Google and AMD slumped up to 5% when they delivered their Q1 earnings reports after the end of regular trade on Wall Street this morning. Google posted a 23% jump in revenue as Web advertising recovered but the result disappointed investors used to knockout reports.

"They've had a strong last few days... and some investors expected Google to beat by a wider margin and price-per-click to come in a bit higher than 7% growth," analyst Andrew Miedler told Reuters.

In company news, shares in Macarthur Coal jumped more than 7% after a revised offer from US miner Peabody Energy. Peabody is locked in a three-way bidding war with Australian miner New Hope and commodities firm Noble Group.

Japan's Nikkei dumped 1.35% this morning as the U.S. results weighed on the technology sector and a strong yen hampered exporters. Shanghai slipped 1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.33% after China tightened property regulations.

Crude oil futures dropped another 63 cents this morning to $84.81 a barrel. The spot gold price was $3.40 lower at $1,156 an ounce.


A manic morning of mixed returns here. Began buying PVE far too early, leaving my average price far higher than it should be. Sold half into the mid-morning spike for a small profit. Lots of bounce opportunities - I skimmed a few points off AWE, CEY, AGO and ASX.