daytrades nov 3 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

The Australian share market is on target for a new six-month closing high, fuelled by strength in mining stocks following overnight rises in resource prices.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead 17 points or 0.4% at 4719 and heading towards its third positive close this week. The gains were led by the gold sector, up 1.5%, metals & mining +1% and materials +0.8%. Financial stocks were up 0.3% following Westpac's record earnings of $5.88 billion.

In economic news, building approvals continued to decline. Building permits fell a seasonally-adjusted 6.6% in September and are down 11.6% for the year.

"The concerning thing there is that over this period in the housing sector, there was a rate hike reprieve with the Reserve Bank on hold," JP Morgan economist Ben Jarman told Fairfax. "You wouldn't expect things to get any better on that front with the RBA hiking this week."

In the U.S., CNN reported that the Republican Party has won control of the House of Representatives in voting overnight but is unlikely to capture the Senate. The Republicans needed to win 39 seats to take control of the House and 10 seats for the Senate.

Asian markets were mixedx. Shanghai was off 0.43% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.55%. Japan's Nikkei was closed for a bank holiday. Dow futures were recently at +4.

Crude oil futures rallied 37 cents this morning to $84.29 a barrel. The spot gold price was $4.30 weaker at $1,352.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 99.76 U.S. cents.


Plenty of opportunities to buy pullbacks this morning, which is where I do most of my buying. Nice scalps in RSL, COI, BLD and SGP. Took profits on MML from yesterday. Added DJS at support but looks shaky. Watching OVR.