daytrades may 5 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Australia shares crumbled to their lowest level since early March this morning as the latest global market rout rumbled through Asia.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 86 points or 1.8% at 4650 after European debt worries and slowing Chinese growth sparked a flight to safety last night in Europe and the U.S.
Consumer staples was the only local sector to trade positive this morning as institutional investors rotated into defensive stocks. Resource stocks fell heavily for a third day and financial stocks tumbled nearly 3% despite Westpac announcing a 30% rise in profits.

"It's a bit of a bloodbath today," IG Markets institutional dealer Chris Weston told MarketWatch. "We are seeing aggressive short-selling of materials and other high beta names because there's still no clarity on the resources tax and the European debt crisis and Chinese manufacturing looks to be slowing down. It's a perfect storm, but we've got great value in certain stocks, which could trigger broker upgrades."

There was brighter news in the building sector, where new data this morning showed approvals jumped by the most in more than seven years in March. Building approvals increased by 15.3%, reversing a revised 2.7% fall in February, according to the ABS - well ahead of economists' estimates of a rise of just 0.8%.

Elsewhere, activity in the services sector expanded for the first time in five months in April, according to a new survey. The Ai Group-CBA performance of services index rose 3.4 points to 52.3 points, the first time since November that the index came in above the 50 mark that indicates expansion.

Asian markets sagged. Shanghai dropped 2.2% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.95%. Japanese markets remained closed (boy, are they going to have some catching up to do). Dow futures were recently at -1.

Crude oil futures clawed back some of their steep overnight losses, rising 22 cents this morning to $82.38 a barrel. The spot gold price continued to decline, sliding another $3.30 to $1,167.80 an ounce.


After copping a caning yesterday, I backed my instincts and went in hard on oversold shares in the first 10 minutes this morning. The result was my biggest payday in months. Good profits in MGX, LNC, FMG, GIR, AGO, BRM, BMY, KZL and more recently MAP. Not all went according to plan. Got into NHC too early but doubled up at the low and sold the lot at a profit. Am underwater on AAX - likely loss unless there's a reversal. Still holding PVE, but Italy looks less attractive this morning.