daytrades feb 21 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Welcome back Nikko.

Half-time round-up: Local shares have suffered their heaviest fall this month following China's bank reserve hike on Friday and increasing unrest in the Middle East.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 43 points or 0.9% at 4893, erasing most of last week's gains. Gold was the pick of the handful of sectors to improve this morning, rallying 1.3% as defensive stocks outperformed cyclicals. Telecoms was the weakest sector, down 5.1% as Telstra traded without its dividend.

"Markets will probably remain on the cautious side," Jamie Spiteri, senior dealer at Shaw Stockbroking told Fairfax. "The oil stocks are strong on the belief the unrest may cause oil prices to rise but other groups across the resources are a bit weaker with China having to intervene."

US futures deteriorated ahead of tonight's public holiday as Asian markets mostly weakened following a decision by the People's Bank of China to raise bank reserve requirements by half a percentage point. Dow futures were recently at -23. Japan's Nikkei was off 0.33%, Shanghai shook off early weakness to rise 0.11% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 0.4%.

Oil rallied this morning as Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son warned the country was on the brink of civil war. Crude oil futures improved $1.12 or 1.3% this morning to $87.32 a barrel. Spot gold was $7 or 0.5% stronger at $1,396 an ounce. The dollar was buying US $1.0131.


A gnarly morning but promising for anyone holding goldies, oilers or silver miners. The market may finally be waking up to the implications of regime change in the Middle East. Plenty of volatility creating opportunities for bounce scalps. I had wins in KAS, GXY, MGO, ARU and AMX. However, the final tally largely depends on a recovery in RDS - began buying too soon and remain underwater on that one.