Thanks Oscar and morning crew. Half-time round-up: A negative...

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

A negative start to the week on commodity markets capped a second day of gains on the ASX.   

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was six points or 0.1% ahead at 5533 after earlier sliding as low as 5517. Falls in the gold sector -1.3%, metals & mining -0.95% and energy -0.7% took the edge off rises in consumer staples +1.1%, industrials +0.95% and financials +0.1%.

US-dollar-denominated commodities came under pressure this morning following a jump in the greenback on hawkish comments from US central bank officials. Federal Reserve Vice-Chairman Stanley Fischer indicated yesterday that US growth was picking up, pointing towards likely rate rises later this year.

"Fischer was very upbeat on the outlook for the US economy, stating that he expected investment to pick up imminently and that PCE core inflation at 1.6 per cent was within hailing distance of their 2 per cent inflation target," IG analyst Angus Nicholson told Fairfax. "Given that materials and energy stocks did a lot of the heavy lifting for stock indices globally last week, the prospect of a noticeable US dollar bounce this week could provide some headwinds for these recent gainers. The oil price, in particular, has had a massive rally, entering a technical bull market last week."

Crude oil futures dropped 55 cents or 1.13% this morning to US$47.97 a barrel. Gold futures gave up $10.10 or 0.75% to US$1,336.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying 75.98 US cents.

Asia's less-commodity-dependent markets took the declines in their stride. China's Shanghai Composite put on 0.11%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.17% and Japan's Nikkei 0.19%. Dow futures were recently down 19 points or 0.1%.


Get well, Speckled - missing you already. Thanks Oscar for filling his substantial brogues this morning. Trading: first bounce in OML gave a nice start to the week. Looked to AVL for icing, but still waiting. Can't complain: cake is cake, iced or not.