daytrades - november 16 pre-market

Tuesday's Opening Thread:

The Global Lead: The Australian share market is likely to open flat this morning following a rollercoaster session on US markets which saw the Dow increase by as much as 88 points before a sell off in the last two hours erased most of the gains. The Dow finished with a modest gain of 9.4 points or 0.1%. Precious metal prices were again weak as the US dollar continued to push up against resistance versus a basket of currencies (see updated chart below).



The Scorecard from Monday
Markets
XJO -4.7 points, Down 0.1%
DJIA +9.4 points, Up 0.1%
FTSE +23.5 points, Up 0.4%
DAX +55.6points, Up 0.8%
Hangseng -195.4 points, Down 0.8%
Nikkei +125.0 points, Up 1.3%
Shanghai +29.0 points, Up 1.0%

Key Commodities
Gold -$9.30, Down 0.7%
Silver -$0.57, Down 2.2%
Oil USD-$0.19, Down 0.2%
Copper USD +$0.002 c/lb, Flat

Economic Data: Economic data released yesterday was relatively positive with preliminary GDP growth figures in Japan coming in at 0.9% for the quarter versus an expected 0.6%. Retail sales were released in the US and came in as expected with a 0.4% increase for the month (core data). Total retail sales came in above expectations at +1.2% versus analysts expectations of a 0.7% increase. Given that core retail exclude motor vehicles this tends to indicate that sales of new cars were stronger than expected in the US over the past month.

Trading Themes: I expect further weakness in the mining sector today due to the overnight falls in precious metals prices. From a trading perspective I will be looking for news driven price moves due to the likelihood of a flat market.