Thanks Shants and morning regulars. Enjoy your break, Shants. I'll be away myself on and off from New Year into the second half of January.
Half-time round-up:
A sixth straight decline has the share market facing its lowest close in two months as gains in defensive sectors were dwarfed by falls in resource stocks following news that China's factory output contracted faster than expected.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 16 points or 0.3% lower at 5172, just 17 points above the October closing low of 5155. Modest rises in utilities +0.6%, property trusts +0.5% and consumer staples +0.1% were overshadowed by losses in gold -2.3%, metals & mining -2.3% and energy -1.6%.
The dollar edged lower briefly this morning after the minutes from the last Reserve Bank policy meeting showed board members anticipate further weakness in the currency as the economy weathers a downturn in mining. The dollar was lately buying 82.18 US cents, back near where it started the morning.
"Members agreed that further exchange rate depreciation was likely to be needed to achieve balanced growth in the economy," the minutes said.
Chinese manufacturing activity contracted this month for the first time in eight months, according to HSBC's flash purchasing managers' index, released at at 12.45pm EST. The PMI fell to 49.5 from a reading of 50 last month. Economists had predicted a decline to 49.8.
Asian markets were mixed. China's Shanghai Composite advanced 0.34%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.83% and Japan's Nikkei gave up 1.93%. Dow futures were recently 59 points or more than 0.3% ahead.
Crude oil futures bounced 33 cents this morning to US$55.59 a barrel. Spot gold was $3.90 stronger at US$1,196.30 an ounce.
I was surprised to find myself in partial agreement with Ironjack this morning. He said: "The best thing any newbie can do IMO is place the daytrading thread on ignore". Absolutely. Day trading is no place for the inexperienced. No one should take any notice of this thread unless/until they have a couple of years' experience in investing or short-term trading. Event then it would help to have a good grasp of technical analysis, some understanding of fundamentals and a good grasp of psychology, particularly as it relates to markets and mob behaviour. He also said the thread is "pure noise". While I'd argue that's true of most of HotCopper, it's especially true here because we trade the "noise" - the short-term intraday movements that don't necessarily matter to long-term holders. So he's onto something. What irregular visitors to this thread don't seem to understand is the different time-frames that operate in day trading. To be clear: this thread is not an investment tool. Most of the stocks mentioned here are highly speculative and will amount to, at best, very little. We're not recommending people invest in "dogs". We're alerting other traders to the possibility that a potential profit might be made by giving a "dog" a home for a few hours or at most, a few days. Traders do exactly what the name implies - they buy and sell. They do not hoard. They flip shares. In other words, their interests are very unlikely to align with yours unless you are also a day trader. Speaking of which: this was another good day to buy panic lows and sell into the recoveries. SRX was a standout for a second day. TPM also offered a profit.
