daytrades may 20 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Shares are lower for the first day in four as weak overnight commodity prices and end-of-week profit-taking take their toll.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 21 points or 0.45% at 4734 as falls in resource stocks and banks overshadowed gains in defensive sectors. Property trusts and telecoms were the pick of the rising sectors, both ahead 0.3%. Metals & mining was the worst-performing sector, down 1.3%.

"It looks like the local bourse may be set for a weaker end to the week, with selling among materials names likely to weigh the most," IG Markets analyst Ben Potter told Fairfax. "With the market up 1 per cent so far this week, traders may look to lock in some gains ahead of the weekend, which will further pressure the index."

Asian markets were mixed. Japan's Nikkei gained 0.29%, Shanghai eased 0.23% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was little changed at +0.03%. Dow futures were recently at -8.

The dollar was fractionally stronger following overnight weakness in the US dollar after a mostly disappointing night of economic news. The Aussie was buying US $1.0671, up less than a quarter of a cent.

Crude oil futures recouped 49 cents this morning to reach US $98.99 a barrel. Spot gold was $2.50 stronger at US $1,495.90 an ounce.



Felt like a pretty turgid morning from here. I try to sit on my hands until a clear opportunity presents but I'm often lured into premature buys on slow mornings. Got into KGL too early in the plunge and had to double up lower down to get out with a profit. Worked out well in the end but could have been a lot better. Only other buy was AIO when the red candle looked a little longer than usual - recovering now, as hoped. (BTW, there was a superb fat-fingers incident this morning when someone accidentally took out a thin buy queue all the way from $2.32 down to 2.4 cents. Sadly for the 2.4c buyer, the trades from $2.20 down appear to have been reversed.)