Australian shares tracked sideways on a morning when oil and gold staged partial recoveries from overnight lows and consumer confidence slumped.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was up 2 points or 0.05% at 4742 as slender gains in cyclical sectors were balanced by falls in defensive sectors. Gold shares were hit hardest, sending the sector down 2.1% despite a bounce in the price of gold from overnight lows. Spot gold was recently $10.60 higher than the price at 8.15 am at $1,402.20 an ounce. Crude oil futures rebounded 95 cents this morning to $86.81 a barrel.
"There's still quite a cautionary air to the trading environment, with some of the situations that seem to be creeping out from Europe and a bit of [U.S.] dollar strength coming through," IG Markets dealer Chris Weston told Fairfax. "Also, some people are looking at the G20 [meeting starting tomorrow] although I don't think that's going to cause a huge amount of volatility."
This month's interest rate rise sent consumer confidence to its lowest level in five months. The WBC-MI index fell 5.3% to 110.7 points.
Asian markets were mixed. Japan's Nikkei rallied 1.21% this morning, led by banking stocks, but Shanghai fell 0.95 % and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was off 0.15%. Dow futures were recently at +4. The dollar was buying 1.0066 U.S. dollars.
Been a low-key morning and that's reflected in my trading. Took profits on the rebound in LYC and caught some MMMX on the early dip, closing out near the morning's top. Will watch that one again tomorrow to see if it has more legs. Otherwise a slow session. Let's hope the Chinese data puts a spark in the market.
