Shares were unchanged at lunchtime after soft resource prices held back mining stocks and another earthquake weighed on trade in Japan.
At 1pm the ASX 200 was flat at 4742 and trading near the highest level of the day after overcoming a weak start. Telstra, the big banks and health and energy stocks made progress, while resource stocks and industrials fell back.
Japanese stocks retreated as a 6.5 magnitude earthquake prompted a tsunami warning, later cancelled. The Nikkei was recently down 0.4%. Shanghai added 0.41% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.32%. Dow futures were recently at +20.
The dollar hovered near record levels this morning following Saturday morning's peak at US $1.0294. The dollar was recently buying US $1.0251.
Spot gold was $2.70 weaker at $1,427.50 an ounce. Crude oil futures were little changed, up 13 cents at $105.53 a barrel.
Not a great morning's work here. I was cautious when I needed to be bold, and bold when I should have been cautious. Scalped EGO successfully but got into FNT too early. Missed AVX and NRL on pullback a couple of times. C minus on the report card. Can do better.
