Thanks Endless. Happy birthday Lioness - hope your candle wish...

Thanks Endless. Happy birthday Lioness - hope your candle wish delivered more profitable trades than I found this morning.

Half-time round-up:

Australian shares nudged a 12-week high this morning before gains were capped by a deterioration in business confidence and declines in key defensive sectors.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 12 points or 0.2% ahead at 5120 as gains in health +1.8%, industrials +0.9%, financials +0.4% and materials +0.1% outweighed losses in gold -1.1%, utilities -1%, property trusts -0.9% and telecoms -0.6%.

Support from rises in most Asian markets was tempered by the failure of record low interest rates and a falling dollar to lift domestic business conditions and confidence. NAB's conditions index wallowed at -7 last month, a four-year low, while confidence ebbed to -3 from zero in June.

"The still weak set of industry conditions suggests the lower Australian dollar is providing little support to activity domestically," a NAB spokesperson said in notes quoted on Fairfax. "Forward-looking indicators of activity suggest little near-term revival in business conditions, with forward orders, employment conditions, stocks and capacity utilisation all remaining well below long-run average levels."

The Shanghai Composite initially extended yesterday's gains before rolling over, recently trading 0.18% in the red. Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 0.27% and Japan's Nikkei gained 1.33%. Dow futures were recently up one point or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures edged up four cents this morning to US$106.20 a barrel. Spot gold declined $2.50 to US$1,333.90 an ounce. The dollar was buying 91.3 US cents.


Can't complain abut the general market direction, but the lack of volatility is making genuine day trading a tougher prospect. Takes a lot of patience in these conditions. Momentum trading is likely the way to go until the market finds a reason for another correction. Not my strong suit, unfortunately. EVN finally retreated far enough to offer a couple of trades for a day's wage, but I gave most back in extracting myself from the last of a mistimed buy in MEU last week. Lioness, I'm ready to knock off for birthday drinks whenever you're ready.