daytrades march 26 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

The Australian share market is on track for its first losing week in seven after a sharp pull-back this morning as U.S. futures weakened.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 40 points or 0.82% at 4845, with all sectors bar health trading lower. Overnight retreats in key commodity prices dragged the energy sector down 1.4%, metals & mining 1.2%, materials 1.1% and gold 0.6%.

RBA Governor Glenn Stevens this morning defended the central bank's recent interest rate hikes. Mr Stevens told a conference in Sydney, "I think one of the problems in the pre-crisis risk period was arguably a little bit too much comfort being taken by financial markets and borrowers generally that a central bank would never hurt them or surprise them. We have certainly never made a commitment not to make surprises. And nor should we, nor should any central banks."

Elsewhere, former Prime Minister Paul Keating warned that China's economic growth was unsustainable. Mr Keating said the growth of near 10% was artificially propped by government investment and a pegged currency that made Chinese exporters more competitive.

"Our biggest customer China is growing for the moment... but only on investment steroids," Mr Keating was quoted on Fairfax.

Dow futures were recently 21 points in the red following last night's sharp reversal on U.S. markets.

Asian markets were mixed. Japan's Nikkei climbed 0.66% as its exporters continued to benefit from a softening yen, but Shanghai dropped 0.2% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was off 0.5%.

Crude oil futures trimmed overnight losses, rising 30 cents this morning to $80.61 a barrel. The spot gold price tracked sideways, recently down $1.30 at $1,090.20 an ounce.


I've been using the volatility in the mid-caps for bounce scalps this morning. In and out of SEK and JHX. Back into SEK now and looking for a recovery there and in GUD, which has been a reliable swinger at these levels.