daytrades august 16 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Australian shares are lower for the fourth day in five but pared losses as Shanghai turned positive and U.S. futures improved.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 38 points or 0.9% at 4422 but well off the morning low of 4402. Hardest hit were IT, -1.9%, as Computershare's weak outlook continued to weigh, and financials, down 1.7% after CBA went ex-dividend. Gold +1%, energy +0.3% and telecoms +0.3% were the pick of the handful of rising sectors, most of them defensive.

"There was a real sense of malaise last week and that hasn't lifted," CMC Markets analyst David Taylor told Fairfax websites. "It's a tough market. Liquidity has been down for a couple of weeks."

This morning's company reports were mostly well-received, with LEI, LLC, CEY, BSL, NCM and DWS all trading higher after reporting. Shares in AWB surged more than 30% after an unsolicited take-over offer from Canadian giant Agrium.

In economic news, new car sales dipped 2.6% last month, but are 11.6% higher than this time last year, according to ABS statistics released this morning.

Asian markets were mixed. Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.94% on weak GDP numbers and Hong Kong's Hang Seng slid 0.34%, but Shanghai was recently up 0.6%. Dow futures were recently at -21 but improving from early lows.

The spot gold price rallied $3.10 this morning to $1,218.50 an ounce. Crude oil futures climbed 13 cents to $75.52 a barrel. The Aussie dollar was buying 88.98 U.S. cents.


Good to see some residual bullishness from Friday drag our market off its lows this morning. It has been a very mixed session for this trader. Caught a lovely bounce in UNS during that bizarre mid-morning collapse. Rode DLX from near the open. That's the good stuff. Have been wrong-footed by the weakness in IAG, and Young Trader's warning about trading sell-offs in biotechs came too late to keep me out of VHL, lol. Nursing a paper loss there.