daytrades sep 28 pre-market

Morning traders.

Market wrap: Australian shares are set to open lower after the big September rally on world markets stuttered overnight as European debt concerns deepened.

The December SPI futures contract this morning closed 18 points weaker at 4686 after a late swoon on Wall Street matched modest falls in Europe. Key commodities also eased after Friday's surge.

Wall Street flirted with positive territory as merger activity intensified but further falls in financial stocks dragged the major indexes lower in the final hour of trade. The Dow closed 48 points or 0.44% down, the S&P 500 fell 0.57% and the Nasdaq 0.48%. Volume was light.

Market commentators highlighted concerns over European debt after ratings agency Moody's cut Ireland's Anglo Irish Bank's senior debt to one level above junk. In another sign of growing investor doubts about the ability of some European governments to service their debt, the gap between German bond yields and those of Ireland and Portugal blew out to record highs.

"The market's taking a breather after the huge rally we had last week," Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak in the U.S. told Bloomberg. "Anglo Irish was downgraded this morning. That took the wind out of European market sales. That's one of the catalysts. European bond markets, particularly Ireland and Portugal, are not trading that great."

The U.S. dollar clawed back some of last week's losses as the Irish news weighed on the euro. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major currencies, was recently up 0.1%.

Oil eased amid claims by an analyst that the current price does not reflect weak fundamentals. Citigroup's Tim Evans told clients there was ample supply and the market appeared vulnerable to a downturn. Crude futures were recently off 27 cents or 0.35% at $76.22 a barrel.

Most industrial metals eased from Friday's multi-month highs. In late trade in London, copper was down 0.5%, aluminium 1.1%, lead 1.2% and zinc 1.8%. Nickel rallied 0.9% and tin 0.1%.

Precious metals hovered near recent highs. Silver advanced 0.1% to a new 30-year high at $21.47 an ounce. The spot gold price nudged $1,300 an ounce before recently trading $2.60 lower than Friday's New York close at $1,294.40 an ounce.

The major European markets drifted lower. Britain's FTSE eased 0.45%, Germany's DAX 0.31% and France's CAC 0.43%.

TRADING THEMES TODAY

TAKING A BREATHER: No real cause for concern in the overnight action IMO. Some profit-taking was always likely, given the strength of this month's rally. The local market looks likely to give back around a third of yesterday's gains at today's open, but dips look like buying opportunities in this bullish environment.

ECONOMIC NEWS: There is nothing significant scheduled locally today. Consumer confidence is the main interest tonight in the U.S. Also due: the house-price index and regional manufacturing.

Good luck to all.