A rocky morning on regional markets and soft US futures left Australian shares little changed for a second day.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead 1 point or 0.01% at 4644 as gains in banks and health and energy stocks were offset by weaker miners, industrials and small caps.
"We haven't seen huge gains or falls this week and it looks like it might be a lacklustre session," Commsec market analyst Steven Daghlian told MarketWatch. "Oil is quite close to high levels we saw back in September 2008... that could be interesting for our market. At the moment, oil and gas producers are doing quite well."
Crude oil inched back above US$105 a barrel, rising another 25 cents this morning to $105.17. Shares in Virgin Blue fell nearly 8% after the airline announced a pre-tax loss of $30-$80 million, blaming fuel prices and natural disasters. The airline's fuel bill for this half rose by $50 million in a month as the price of oil surged.
Japanese stocks gave back some of yesterday's 4.4% rise, easing 1.5% in morning trade. Shanghai was recently ahead 0.16% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 0.3%. Dow futures were recently at a mildly bearish -26.
Spot gold was $1.10 stronger at $1,427.10 an ounce. The dollar pared overnight gains, recently buying US $1.0083.
No clear direction this morning, which never makes for easy trading. All the major markets are standing around looking at each other and asking what's going to happen next. Anyone got a clue? Nope, me neither. This has been my slowest trading week in months but it's still possible to prosper if you pick your trades well. This morning delivered a solitary point in QPN but the leverage that share offers made for a nice profit.
