daytrades oct 22 afternoon

Thanks Tweets. Half-time round-up:

Australian shares are higher for just the second session this week as most regional markets advanced this morning.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was up 13 points or 0.3% at 4636, with modest gains for industrials, defensive sectors and some of the big banks countering losses for gold stocks and a flat session for other miners.

"Every time the US dollar strengthens, we see commodity prices come off and we see the materials names get dragged down," IG Markets market analyst Cameron Peacock told Fairfax. "That's going to be the focus for today and maybe heading into next week, to see how the US dollar continues to perform, because that's going to dictate the direction of commodities and of these resource names."

Asian markets were mostly stronger. Japan's Nikkei was up 0.39%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was flat and Shanghai off 0.44%. Dow futures were recently at -1.

Crude oil futures rallied 36 cents this morning to $81.05 a barrel. The spot gold price was 90 cents stronger at $1,326 an ounce. The dollar was buying 97.9 U.S. cents.


A cautious morning here after yesterday's wash-out. Booked a holiday yesterday and don't want to give back any more of this week's profits! In and out of LYC twice in the last half-hour as it retraces. Added a few KOR as it nears the 50% retrace level.