daytrades may 24 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

The Australian share market overcame a brief wobble this morning to add more than 1% as the Shanghai Composite surged nearly 4%.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was up 64 points or 1.5 at 4369. The index added nearly 60 points in less than an hour as key Asian markets traded higher. Cyclical sectors led the gains in a hint of a renewed appetite for risk after more than a month of heavy selling on the local bourse. Metals & mining climbed 2%, financials 1.9% and materials 1.7%.

"That's good, as it shows there's a resumption in risk appetite," IG Markets research analyst Ben Potter told Fairfax. "We'll certainly see one or two days more of bounce and then the real test will come to see whether the bears come to attack the market again... or whether selling increases but is not able to drive stocks too much lower."

Gains in industrial metals prices on Friday helped Chinese resource companies this morning recover from last week's heavy losses. The Shanghai Composite was recently up 3.5%, which has helped drag U.S. futures off bearish lows. Dow futures were recently at -1 after earlier trading around 0.5% lower. Japan's Nikkei ended morning trade down 0.28%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was recently up 0.77%.

However, the U.S. dollar gained in Asian trade as traders continued to hedge against further falls in equities. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was recently up 0.4%, suggesting not everyone is convinced last week's recovery in the euro has legs.

The spot gold price erased most of Friday's losses this morning, climbing $7.50 or 0.7% to $1,184.50 an ounce. Crude oil futures climbed 40 cents or 0.57% to $70.44 a barrel.


Not a morning where tight stop-loss discipline would have done anyone any favours. A sharp sell-off followed by an equally sharp bounce would have caught out a few traders, including myself to some extent. I bought a few near their lows but let them go too cheaply - AMC, CEY, GNC, SVW and MOL.