Daytrading December 12 afternoon

Thanks Trade Surfer and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Energy stocks propelled the ASX to a four-month high this morning as an oil production deal lit a fire under crude and boosted US equity futures.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 10 points or 0.2% ahead at 5571 after earlier touching 5583, the index's strongest reading since early August. The energy sector provided most of the momentum, surging 2.8% as crude responded to news of a weekend agreement between OPEC and other major producers to limit output. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were last up $2.27 or 4.4% at US$53.77 a barrel. Dow futures rose 41 points or 0.21%.

“As a statement to the world, OPEC has probably done all they could have possibly done,” Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG, told Bloomberg. “This is a very powerful message that producers want to balance the market higher. This is about as bullish as it gets.”

Also strong were utilities +1.2%, metals & mining +0.7% and IT +0.4%. Gold stocks stumbled 3%, health 1.2% and industrials 0.2%.

China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.34%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.32% and Japan's Nikkei 1.28%.

Gold futures declined $3.70 or 0.3% to US$1,158.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 74.59 US cents.


ASX not showing much conviction that those US futures are fair dinkum. Certainly the market is starting to feel frothy at the big end, particularly in the US. Doesn't mean there isn't lots more to come. Market trends generally continue much longer than seems possible. Trading: buys in RAP, RLC, HMO and RGS yet to pay off to any extent.