daytrades march 25 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Australian shares sank under a weak overseas lead this morning but pared losses as the session wore on.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 9 points or 0.2% at 4882 as gains in energy and defensive sectors were outweighed by losses in the big banks and miners. Most sectors were trading negative, with gold shares down 1.7%, mining -0.2% and financials -0.3%.

The energy sector was boosted by rumours that Woodside Petroleum plans to take over Santos. STO shares rallied more than 4% this morning.

Reserve Bank of Australia assistant governor Phil Lowe was upbeat on the outlook for Australia during a speech this morning. Mr Lowe said interest rates were still 50 basis points off the decade average and were likely to move higher this year. Mr Lowe said the central bank had "confidence that the economy is now in a reasonably solid upswing", citing growth in employment, business and consumer confidence and the housing market.

Asian markets were mixed. Japan's Nikkei lifted 0.2% as exporters benefitted from a drop in the value of the yen, but Shanghai slid 0.66% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1%. Dow futures were recently at +4.

The spot gold price pared overnight losses this morning, rising $3.20 to $1,088.70 an ounce. Crude oil futures were little changed at $80.40 a barrel.


A more bullish morning than I expected - futures traders obviously had a better feel for today's market than I did, lol. The early dip provided nice entries for bounces in ALS, HST and more recently, DOW. Also had a wafer-thin scalp in VLA and a went-nowhere trade in DOM.