daytrading august 14 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

The share market reached lunchtime little changed as Asian markets drifted and traders digested one of the heaviest menus on this year's corporate earnings calendar.

At 1pm the ASX 200 was three points or less than 0.1% weaker at 5153 after spending the morning locked in a tight 19-point range. Earnings hits and misses dominated the session, with notable rises including WOR, CRZ, SAI, SKE and SXL and falls including CBA, CPU, LEI, OZL and CSL. Most companies on both sides of the ledger had rallied into today's announcements.

"We have had most analyst expectations lowered to levels that it's now very hard for companies to miss expectations," Arab Bank Australia Treasury Dealer David Scutt told Fairfax. "And because of that you've seen a lot of companies have rallied hard into earnings on those expectations of a beat. The result is once they've released the data the markets aren't shocked... so they tend to sell off and take some profit. That's what we are seeing today.

"It's not just Australian stock analysts, it's globally. If you look at almost every single earnings season in recent history, analysts lower expectations heading into, and if you look at the number of firms that beat and often it's well in excess of 60, 70 per cent. There's probably a correlation between the two things there."

Consumer confidence improved this month following a minor setback in July. The WBC/MI index of consumer sentiment rose 3.5% in August as the latest rate cut boosted confidence.

Asian markets also struggled for direction following several days of gains. Shanghai was flat and Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.04%. Dow futures were recently down 12 points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures rallied five cents this morning to US$106.56 a barrel. Spot gold was $1.40 firmer at US$1,322.30 an ounce. The dollar was buying 90.96 US cents.



Some classic "sell the news" action among companies reporting this morning. A few big falls on the face of it but most seem to be re-setting to "neutral" after two days of gains heading into this session. This morning's pre-market discussion got me thinking about a few of the old regulars who haven't looked in for a while. Poly2006 was an extremely smart operator - miss his input here. Exitstageright was a straight-shooter. Kevi made some good calls. And of course, Nikko, who started this thread and the peerless PJSimon. Would love to hear from any of them. Back to trading: early win in BOL and then twiddled my thumbs until BCC fell enough for a small speculator. Lately most of the pullbacks have been too shallow for my margin of safety.