daytrading feb 17 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

The share market reached the halfway mark above its highest close of the year as a seventh gain from eight sessions erased the market's losses since January 1.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 20 points or 0.4% higher at 5376 led by gains in gold +4%, metals & mining +1.3% and health +0.8%. The index's previous best close for the year was 5368 on January 2.

The rally came as domestic earnings surprise to the upside, according to AMP. With a fifth of companies having reported through to Friday, AMP said the percentage of positive surprises was the highest since 2008.

"This reporting season seems to have almost caught investors by surprise," AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver told Fairfax.

Asian markets were mixed. China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.24%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng put 1% and Japan's Nikkei eased 0.1%. Emini Dow futures were recently off 10 points or less than 0.1% ahead of tonight's public holiday.

Crude oil futures rallied 17 cents this morning to US$100.57 a barrel. Spot gold was $8.10 stronger at US$1,327.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 90.62 US cents.



Meme, glad you're onto the Farley book. There are brilliant insights in there if you pick the eyes out of a sprawling, disorganised volume. Hard to say exactly what is amiss with the market at present. Been a nice buy-and-hold rally off the low but from a trader's perspective, the spec market has largely gone back to sleep. My 'hot list' is as cold as yesterday's mashed potatoes, to steal a song-line. Meanwhile, the rise of the bots and HFT have made the mid/larger caps harder to trade than ever. Some of these problems are cyclical and will resolve themselves in time. Others we are stuck with. I'm in one of those periodic form slumps when nothing seems to be going right. Blew a decent week's earnings on BTR on Friday. Looked to SWE and EPX to dig me out of the hole today. The latter is into day three of a very sharp decline with volume suggesting possible capitulation. Heavy emphasis on "possible" at this point. Will sell before EOD unless there is a convincing reversal. SWE is following the same pattern as Friday, but no guarantee that history will repeat.