daytrades feb 11 pre-market

Morning traders.

Market wrap: The share market faces an uncertain start after a mixed night for US stocks and commodities.

The March SPI futures contract ended the night session 5 points or 0.1% weaker at 4883 as disappointing earnings reports and concerns about global inflation weighed on Wall Street before a late rally fired the S&P 500 to a positive finish.

The Dow tumbled 80 points in early trade but again pared losses before the close to finish 11 points or 0.09% lower, ending an eight-session run of positive finishes. The S&P 500 added 0.08% and the Nasdaq 0.05%.

"The U.S. market has taken on a life of its own," Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak, told MarketWatch. "This correction lasted an hour and a half. Every dip is bought. Egypt has been irrelevant to the US equities market except for one day.

Wall Street was initially unsettled by weak outlooks from tech bellwethers Cisco and Akamai and soft equity markets in Asia and Europe, but turned higher late in the session as speculation grew that Egypt's President Mubarak will stand down this morning. Mubarak is due to address the nation at 9 am Australian EST. Also helping sentiment was news that Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh, a critic of the recent QE2 stimulatory plan, has resigned from the central bank.

A rally in the US dollar capped commodity prices. Rio Tinto closed 1.45% weaker in US trade despite announcing it had tripled annual profits and will buy back $5 billion in shares. BHP fell 0.45% and AWC 1.4%.

Precious metals were under pressure for most of the night but trimmed losses. Gold for April delivery was recently down $3 or 0.2% at $1,363 an ounce after earlier touching $1,353. March silver slipped 15 cents or 0.5% to $30.13 an ounce.

Oil pushed into positive territory as OPEC and the International Energy Agency raised their demand forecasts, but the strong dollar limited gains. Crude futures were recently ahead 35 cents or 0.4% at $87.04 a barrel.

Industrial metals closed mixed and little changed as China's interest rate rise and the rising greenback subdued demand. In London, copper added 0.05% and tin 1.1%. Aluminium eased 0.39%, lead 0.04%, nickel 0.85% and zinc 0.64%.

European markets were hampered by a renewal of sovereign debt worries as the yield on Portuguese bonds hit a new high. The news helped drive Portugal's benchmark equity index down 1.8% and Spain's IBEX 35 index down 1.3%. Britain's FTSE dropped 0.53% but late rallies saw Germany's DAX add 0.26% and France's CAC 0.11%.

TRADING THEMES TODAY

CHASING EIGHT: Can our market make it eight positive closes in a row today? There are plenty of reasons to think not, but the indexes just keep chugging higher. It certainly feels like a correction is just around the corner but you gotta run with the bulls until the turn. Asian equity markets have mostly ignored this recent rally and that should be troubling for a market as heavily dependant on Asian trade as ours. I was struck by this comment from a strategist at KBC Securities Bolero quoted on MarketWatch overnight: "All stocks in Europe and the US are overbought, except for Asia. And in former years, whenever there has been a correction in Asia, that was followed by Europe and Wall Street." Hmm...

ECONOMIC NEWS: Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens is due to testify before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics from 9.30 am today. Tonight's schedule in the US includes the trade balance, preliminary consumer sentiment and preliminary inflation expectations.

Good luck to all.