Thanks Brit and morning crew. Half-time round-up: Slumping US...

Thanks Brit and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Slumping US equity futures and weakness in resource stocks helped dent the Australian share market's first rally in five sessions.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 14 points or 0.3% higher at 4789 after earlier rising as much as 35 points following a mixed finish on Wall Street overnight. The best of the sectors were gold, up 2% after the precious metal hit a nine-month high, and health +2%. Spot gold surged $13.70 this morning to US$1,208.30 an ounce. The morning's biggest losers were the metals & mining sector -1.4%, utilities -1.4% and energy -0.8%.

US equity futures tracked a sell-off in crude oil. Dow futures were recently down 90 points or 0.57%. West Texas Intermediate crude oil slumped another 49 cents this morning to US$26.96 a barrel.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng dived 3.96% as it resumed trade after a three-day holiday for the lunar New Year. Most Asian markets, including China's Shanghai Composite and Japan's Nikkei were closed.

The dollar was buying 71.2 US cents.


Big moves in oil and gold this morning. Risk-off move, by the looks. With most Asian markets closed, it's us and Hong Kong bearing the brunt. Trading: nope. Didn't get within coo-ee of a trade all morning. Didn't get the kind of big red open I was hoping for this time yesterday. Instead, more uncertainty. Watching plenty but no light-bulb moments yet.