daytrades april 20 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Australian shares edged higher this morning but pared gains after China's benchmark index opened lower for a second day.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was up 13 points or 0.27% at 4928 but off the morning peak of 4944. Financial stocks drove the market higher after last night's recovery among the Wall Street banks. Local financials rallied 0.5% this morning. Energy +0.6% and telecoms +0.5% led the sector rises.

China's Shanghai Composite, which plunged 4.8% yesterday, dropped nearly 1.5% in early trade but recovered to trade recently 0.23% higher. Japan's Nikkei recovered 0.42% of yesterday's losses and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was ahead 0.74%. Dow futures were recently down 11 points after IBM shares dropped in after-market trade when the tech giant posted its Q1 earnings.

The minutes of the last RBA board meeting were released this morning and analysts said the wording raised the possibility of another rise in the cash rate in May.

"Our view is for another rate rise pretty soon," NAB head of Australian economics Robert Brooker told Fairfax. "People are right to be cautious."

Crude oil futures rallied 25 cents this morning to $82.01 a barrel. The spot gold price was $1.10 higher at $1,136.70 an ounce.


A slow morning here. Felt cautious and the opening prices were too steep for my margin of error. Small position taken in CRZ in case the instos run it back up again. Bots all over it this morning. Lost faith in PVE and cleared the remainder at a loss - buying volume has evaporated and there was evidence of props in the buy queue.