daytrades feb 23 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Shares are lower for a fourth day but off their morning lows following a partial recovery in the big miners.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was off 7 points or 0.15% at 4849 after earlier falling as low as 4831. The Materials sector was ahead 0.2% as BHP rallied against the market trend for a second day. Shares in insurance groups remained under pressure following events in Christchurch. Gold and the Small Ordinaries were the weakest of the sectors, down 1% and 0.6% respectively.

Crude oil futures rallied another 42 cents this morning to $95.67 a barrel as local commentators questioned whether the recent surge was justified.

"Whether things will deteriorate in the Middle East and Libya and whether they will actually lead to material disruptions to oil supplies is very much an open question," CMC Markets analyst Ric Spooner told Fairfax. "Secondly, as far as the oil price stands at the moment, anything could happen, but generally there is reasonable spare capacity at the moment."

Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens this morning warned that the central bank expects Chinese growth to slow this year.

"China is tightening their policies with a little more determination maybe now than we saw last year," Mr Stevens said in at a speech quoted on Fairfax. "[That] means we can expect to see China slow down this year and we have a big stake in managing that process as smoothly as possible."

Key Asian markets were marginally lower this morning. Japan's Nikkei eased 0.16%, Shanghai 0.01% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.03%. Dow futures were recently at +24 despite a 12% fall in shares in computer maker Hewlett-Packard in after-market trade as the company released a weaker-than-expected outlook for this quarter.

Spot gold was $2.50 weaker at $1,397.50 an ounce. The dollar crawled back above parity, recently buying US $1.003.


Good to see the first bullish morning this week. There is a handful of stocks that I class as high-probability reversal candidates on days like today when the market has been down for a few days and opens lower. I traded three of them from the open this morning - MGX, ABY and LNC. Also caught a part-fill in GLF at the low and a nice recovery in EVE. If only I had the patience to match my entry-picking - let them all go too soon, dammit. More recently added SER and NOD.