Thanks Brit and morning regulars. Half-time round-up: Australian...

Thanks Brit and morning regulars.


Half-time round-up:

Australian shares plumbed an eight-month low this morning as a global rout continued through Asia, and US equity futures signalled caution ahead of tonight's session.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 100 points or 1.9% lower at 5188 after earlier touching its weakest level since mid-December. The declines came as Asian markets paced last night's falls in Europe and the US. China's Shanghai Composite was lately off 1.95%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 2.17% and Japan's Nikkei 2.13%. Dow futures were 134 points or 0.8% in the red following the index's worst night in 18 months.

“We’ve been expecting a correction and it looks like we’re getting one,” Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craigs Investment Partners in New Zealand, told Bloomberg. “As of a couple of days ago, the S&P 500 had held up. Now it’s back in negative territory for the year. I’d suggest there’s still probably more downside in the US... It’s not pretty. The whole world’s looking a little bit sad at the moment. China still looks really worrying on a number of fronts.”

A partial rebound in Australia was stifled by the release of weak Chinese factory figures at 11.45am EST, which exacerbated concerns that the Chinese economy is slowing. The Caixin Flash Manufacturing PMI declined to 47.1 this month, the lowest reading in six and a half years. Economists had predicted the index would bounce to 48.1 from a final July reading of 47.8. Read more here.

The Chinese news helped push the dollar down almost half a cent, lately buying 72.96 US cents.

Crude oil futures pulled back 20 cents this morning to US$40.94 a barrel. Spot gold extended its bull run by $10.80 to US$1,16 an ounce.


Interesting times. Turning into an old-fashioned panic. The XJO is off more than 500 points in three weeks, which is another way of saying it is getting heavily oversold and setting up for a pretty nice relief rally - just not yet. Wall Street has to catch up. That ugly Chinese factory update likely means more pain and panic tonight. Speaking of relief rallies, I'm kicking myself for missing STO this morning - there was a 60-70 pip bounce in there if you traded it well. Those don't come along that often. I got a wage out of TTS and more lately had intraday-only dips at SRI, GMG and MSB.