Daytrading December 30 afternoon

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The ASX looked set to end a positive year with only its second pullback in eight trading days as the big banks dragged during a shortened final session of 2016.

The ASX 200 was 19 points or 0.3% weaker at 5680 an hour before the 2pm EST market shutdown for New Year. The benchmark index dipped as low as 5667 before repeating yesterday's intraday rebound.

The index began the year at 5296 and looked well placed to end 2016 with an annual gain of close to 400 points or more than 7%.

A rampant gold sector led today's rebound with a surge of 6.8% as gold attracted defensive buyers amid speculation that the recent global rally in stocks may be overdone. US gold futures improved another $2.90 or 0.25% this morning to US$1,161 an ounce. Also stronger were small caps +0.5%, health +0.5% and utilities +0.4%. The biggest drags on the market were the financial sector, down 0.9%, consumer staples -0.8% and energy -0.6%.

A mixed morning in Asia saw China's Shanghai Composite advance 0.25%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gain 0.85% and Japan's Nikkei lose 0.59%. Dow futures were recently ahead by 14 points or 0.07%.

Crude oil futures rallied 15 cents or 0.28% this morning to US$53.92 a barrel. The dollar was buying 72.48 US cents.


So that was the year that was. Farewell 2016. Like Shants, I had a strong first half, but returns were inconsistent and generally weaker over the second half. Felt like opportunities were fewer and setbacks easier to stumble into. My approach relies on volatility, which waned as the year went on. The rebound since the Trump election shock has been pretty much one-way - great for passive investors, less so for traders. I suspect we'll see a decent pullback next year as the reality of a Trump presidency collides with market expectations. He lacks a power base within the Republican Party hierarchy and seems likely to struggle to carry the party with him. Can't see how a trade war would benefit the market if he does get his way. Also unsure that Twitter is the ideal medium for international diplomacy. Nuance generally requires more than 140 characters. Sorry, drifting into politics here. Back to trading: lost the first hour with an internet outage, but doesn't look like I missed much action. Scraped a skinny trade out of RGS and suspect that's it for the year. Happy New Year to all when it comes. See you in 2017.