daytrading april 26 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Shares touched a six-month high this morning before paring gains as a profit warning from Seven West weighed on media stocks and Shanghai struggled for direction.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was up 20 points or nearly 0.5% at 4380 after earlier hitting 4393, the index's highest level since late October. The rally followed two days of gains in the US over the Anzac Day holiday break after Wall Street colossus Apple announced it doubled profits last quarter.

"Clearly the US markets were influenced by the Apple result, the subsequent jump in the share price, which was a major contributor to the performance of US markets overnight but overall we're getting some technical strength coming through in the overall market," CMC Markets chief market strategist Michael McCarthy told Fairfax.

Mr McCarthy said technical buying could push the index through 4400. "There's some cautious optimism that might be happening this week," he said.

Most sectors advanced this morning, led by IT +1.2%, telecoms +0.8% and financials +0.7%. The only sectors to lose ground were gold -1.3% and consumer discretionary -0.7% following Seven West's profit downgrade.

Most Asian markets edged higher but failed to match overnight gains in Europe and the US. Japan's Nikkei added 0.11%, Shanghai fell 0.14% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng put on 0.53%. Dow futures were recently up four points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures eased six cents this morning to US$103.96 a barrel. Spot gold was 50 cents weaker at US$1,644.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying US$1.0363.


No fireworks but this market just keeps grinding higher. Better suited to investing than trading with these volumes, but at least the trend is positive. A rising market doesn't punish errors as viciously as a declining market. I've had a pretty good morning. Scalped DGR, which in turn took me into AJQ, which debuted this morning. I fluked the low and did well out of the rebound. A third buy, too thinly traded to mention here, is ahead on paper.