daytrading april 16 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

The share market hit its lowest level in a week before paring losses with Asian markets as US futures rallied.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 29 points or 0.6% in the red at 4938 after earlier hitting 4914. Gold stocks slumped to fresh four-and-a-half-year lows this morning before the metal trimmed its worst two-day decline in 30 years. The XGD index of gold shares was lately down 6.4% at 3301, a level last seen in November 2008. Spot gold bounced $6.10 to US$1,353.60 an ounce this morning.

Stocks most exposed to the Chinese growth story bore the brunt of the selling. Metals & mining fell 1.8%, materials 1.8%, energy 2.1%, industrials 1.3% and the Small Ordinaries 2.2%. Health +0.2% and telecoms +0.4% were the pick of the handful of defensive sectors to avoid the carnage.

"Price actions point to a full-fledged flight of funds out of gold markets," a partner at Market Risk Advisory in Japan told Reuters. "Broadly, risk markets had been rallying at a pace not in line with a tepid global growth recovery, so in a way, they are trying to revert to levels more in line with fundamentals. It's time to book profits from recent rallies and hoard cash."

US futures jagged higher as the shock of the Boston Marathon bomb attack wore off and traders assessed the outlook following the market's worst session of the year. Dow futures were recently up 48 points or 0.3%.

Asian markets trimmed sharp early losses. Shanghai was lately off 0.18%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.81% and Japan's Nikkei 1.09%.

The freefall in crude oil continued this morning, sending the current futures contract down another 54 cents to US$86.83 a barrel after earlier touching US$86.06. The dollar was buying $US1.0342.


No convincing evidence yet that commodities have found a bottom, yet this week's falls in share prices - especially goldies - have been so dramatic that some degree of intraday recovery was almost inevitable. The opening prices in the likes of SLR, SBM, BDR and PRU offered relatively low-risk entries. I've booked profits booked on all four. Tempting to hold something overnight but not until gold stops putting in lower lows. Squeezed half a pip out of RMS and caught AZJ at the low. Only mis-step was EVN, which so far refuses to bounce. Days like this make up for all the turgid "nothing happening" sessions. Wait... am I getting nostalgic for the GFC? Whack!