daytrading august 28 afternoon

Thanks Suzie.

Half-time round-up:

The Australian share market erased three days of gains this morning as regional markets responded to steep overnight falls in Europe and the US.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 55 points or 1.1% in the red at 5086 as gains in the defensive utilities sector +1% and consumer staples +0.3% were swamped by declines among cyclicals. The metals & mining was hit hardest, falling 2.1%. Other notable falls included financials -1.4%, industrials -1.2% and the Small Ords -1.1%.

Overnight surges in oil and gold failed to support energy and gold stocks as the falling tide lowered most vessels. The energy sector shed 1% and goldies 1.8%.

"The market has been looking for reasons to sell, and now we have a few," Credit Suisse strategist Damian Boey told Fairfax. "Last night we had a bit more confirmation that things are getting worse in Syria... If you get a situation where, not only do you have geopolitical risk, but you have tightening of credit markets, fiscal drags, oil prices rising - that's not a good combination, and can easily lead to a sharp sell-off, particularly when the market is overbought."

Asian markets played catch-up with the overnight action despite a rebound in US futures. Shanghai lost 0.46%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.45% and Japan's Nikkei 2.36%. Dow futures were recently up 23 points or nearly 0.2%.

Crude oil futures spiked another $1.89 this morning to US$110.85 a barrel. Spot gold was $1.50 firmer at US$1,416.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying 89.63 US cents.


Huge breakout in oil continuing. Possible opportunity to get set with today's overall market weakness. Fibs working wonders this week during spec retraces. Great entries on offer in SSN on Monday, MNW yesterday and then GOR this morning. Also just missed PBT. If you don't know anything about Fibonacci levels, please keep it that way so Treasurehunter and I can clean up. CRZ was stupid-cheap at the open whatever had happened overnight - easy 20 pips and out by 10.10am. Still holding PAN, AIO and MRM from near the lows.