Shares fell from their highest point in 16 months after Wall Street wobbled lower overnight as the Trump/Santa rallies ran out of steam.
At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was eight points or 0.1% weaker at 5677 after falling as much as 26 points in early action as a host of listed trusts traded without their dividends. The utilities sector fell 1.1%, industrials 0.7% and financials less than 0.1%, offsetting rises in gold +2.8%, metals & mining +0.25% and consumer staples +0.2%.
Overnight, the S&P 500 dropped 0.84% as traders prepared for the end of the trading year and Donald Trump's inauguration on January 17.
“A market riding on expectations toward a Trump presidency is coming to a close, and we’re starting to focus on reality,” Mitsushige Akino, executive officer at Ichiyoshi Investment Management in Japan, told Bloomberg. “I expect investors to take a more nervous stance toward US economic indicators from here on.”
Asian markets joined the global retrace. China's Shanghai Composite retreated 0.18%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.14% and Japan's Nikkei 1%. Dow futures were recently up one point or 0.01%.
Crude oil futures gave back 27 cents or 0.5% this morning to US$53.79 a barrel. Gold futures firmed $7.40 or 0.65% to US$1,148.30 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.91 US cents.
Gold on the charge. Sea change? Trading: about the best I can say is that it's desperately slow but slightly more appealing than fixing the leaking dishwasher. Squeezed a wage out of RGS. Missed a few slim half-opps in the ex-divvy trusts. Saving the dishwasher for later.
