daytrades march 11 afternoon

Thanks Barnsty.

Half-time round-up: The share market is on track for its worst weekly fall in nine months after a mid-morning recovery faded ahead of a lunchtime Chinese economic update.

At 1pm the ASX 200 was down 50 points or 1.1% at 4649 after hitting a three-month low of 4641 in the first half-hour of trade. Defensive utilities shares were the only sector to escape the carnage, rising 0.2%. Property trusts were the worst performer, down 1.4%, ahead of gold stocks -1.3% and industrials -1.2%.

"It's not a train wreck yet, but it is about as expected," RBS Morgans private client adviser Bill Bishop told Fairfax. "What else could we realistically expect after recent events in the Middle East and the reported shooting in Riyadh overnight? The market is worried about a rise in the price of oil crimping global growth. There is a lot of uncertainty and markets hate uncertainty."

US futures recovered as regional markets moderated early losses ahead of the 1pm release of Chinese economic data. Dow futures were recently at +22. Japan's Nikkei was off 0.88% after falling 1.3% in early trade, Shanghai just turned positive, up 0.06% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was 0.53% lower.

Crude oil futures rallied 31 cents this morning to $102.75 a barrel. Spot gold was $1.10 stronger at $1,414.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying US $1.0032.



Kates, apologies for not replying to your post this morning - I raced out for a regular pre-market bike ride and didn't get time to compose a useful response. There's a regular group of mid-cap shares that I look at first on potential "turnaround" days like this. The list includes IPL, MGX, LYC, LNC, AGO, CGF, BMN, PNA and ARU. Experience shows that these are high-probability reversal candidates after two or three days of heavy falls. I traded three profitably this morning - AGO, BMN and IPL, plus GXY, ALK and CCU. Been doing this for years and these big red days usually rank among the most profitable. If that sounds cocky, I should say a lot of my exits this morning could have been much, much better. Endless - your "don't sell to HLL" remark this morning gave me a chuckle! Quite right and I hope no one here contributed to my weekend drinking fund. If you did, the Bundies are on me. I'm taking an early mark and heading off for a couple of nights in Sydney now. Best of luck this arvo.