daytrades march 3 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Shares marched higher for a fourth day as new data confirmed the economy is gathering steam.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead 30 points or 0.64% at 4732 after earlier touching its highest level since January 22. The advances were paced by the gold sector, up 2.4%, metals & mining +1.9% and materials +1.8%.

December-quarter gross domestic product figures came in on target and close to historical trend growth. The December figure was +0.9% for an annual figure of 2.7% through to December. It was the fastest growth for the Australian economy since mid-2008.

Michael Blythe, chief economist at CBA told Reuters: "You certainly can't keep a good economy down. All the indicators pointed to a good result and that's what we've got here, with the partial indicators suggesting more to come. While the Reserve Bank expected the economy to move in this direction, I don't think they expected it to move quite so quickly.

"We're expecting a cash rate of 5% by the end of the year, and that still looks like a good call in light of these numbers today."

Asian markets were mixed. Japan's Nikkei added 0.43%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 0.53% and Shanghai dipped 0.2%. Dow futures were at -3.

Crude oil futures were recently 5 cents lower at $79.67 a barrel. The spot gold price was off $1.60 over the course of the morning at $1,132.90 an ounce.


As Kaya predicted, CNX had my name all over it. Out now but the big players may well grind it higher. Also caught AMC on the early bounce and pinched a couple of points off the illiquid ADA.