Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:Local shares are higher at...

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Local shares are higher at lunchtime for a seventh day despite a soft morning for regional markets.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead 2 points or 0.04% at 4906, thanks to gains in financial stocks, gold miners, consumer staples and Telstra following news that the National Broadband Network will use the telco's infrastructure.

"Our banks have generally underperformed over the last 12 months, but they are reducing their bad debts and their earnings are on the increase," IG Markets analyst Cameron Peacock told Fairfax.

The jobless rate held steady at 5% last month as an increase in part-time work offset a drop in full-time work. Part-time jobs rose by 32,000, against a fall in full-time jobs of 8,000 jobs, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics released this morning.

"Despite intensifying in January, the Queensland floods appear to have been a positive for the labour market," Moody's Economy.com's Matthew Circosta told Fairfax. "The sharp rise in part-time employment probably reflects extra hands for clean up after the deluge."

Shanghai shares fell for the second day since the market re-opened after the week-long Lunar New Year holiday. The Shanghai Composite was recently down 0.12%. Japan's Nikkei fell 0.04% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.55%. Dow futures were recently at -2.

Spot gold eased $2.30 to $1,360.70 an ounce this morning. Crude oil futures were unchanged at $86.86 a barrel. The dollar was buying US $1.0089.


Plenty of action if you looked in the right places this morning, but my trading was as uninspired as the overall market. Skimmed a day's wage out of PSF, took a speculator in BDI and exited AGV from the other day for a small loss. Ho-hum.