daytrades nov 30 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Australian shares fell back this morning as a jump in the current account deficit dimmed the outlook for tomorrow's GDP reading.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was off 14 points or 0.3% at 4605 with all sectors except energy and IT trading lower. The heaviest falls were in consumer staples, down 0.9% following a warning from Metcash that it may miss profit targets, telecoms -1.1% and utilities -0.6%.

The morning's reports delivered a mixed picture of the strength of the local economy, with a surge in building approvals, increased government spending and a skinny rise in home prices off-set by a slump in export volumes last quarter.

The current account blew out to $7.8 billion last quarter, against a revised $5.4 billion deficit in the June quarter. Exports are expected to strip 0.4 percentage points off tomorrow's quarterly GDP figure, however, that will be partly off-set by a seasonally-adjusted 0.9% rise in government spending last quarter. Government spending will add around 0.2 of a percentage point to GDP growth.

Building approvals rose last month for the first time in seven months. Permits for building or renovating homes increased by 9.3% per cent from September, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said this morning. A separate report showed city home prices increased a seasonally-adjusted 0.3% last month.

Key Asian markets were mostly lower this morning. Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.5% as the jobless rate increased and industrial output fell, Shanghai added 0.1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng eased 0.2% in early trade. Dow futures were recently at +8.

Crude oil futures eased 14 cents this morning to $85.62 a barrel. The spot gold price slipped $1 to $1,365.60 an ounce. The dollar recovered a fraction of its recent decline, currently buying 96.52 U.S. cents.


Slim pickings this morning. Skimmed a couple of points off AZZ and EAR, but a measly part-fill in ARH that went nowhere sums up a lacklustre session. At least there was some interesting reading on the thread this morning. Always interesting to hear Poly's take on things.