Daytrading Feb 22 afternoon

Thanks Brit and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share market shook off flat leads to advance to a three-week high this morning as US equity futures and Asian markets improved.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 43 points or 0.9% ahead at 4995 after breaking the 5000 level for the first time since the start of the month. Industrials led the rally, rising 2.4% after BXB trumped profit expectations. Also strong were metals & mining +1.9%, materials +1.6% and property trusts +1.2%. Capping the rally were falls in gold -0.7%, telecoms -0.6% and utilities -0.5%.

US futures and Asian markets showed little concern at weekend news that London Mayor Boris Johnson will campaign for Britain to quit the European Union in a June referendum. A so-called 'Brexit' is seen as a potential market disrupter.

“Brexit will be one of the biggest events in 2016,” Evan Lucas, markets strategist at IG, told Bloomberg. “Boris Johnson’s decision over the weekend to support the Brexit campaign has caused the pound to move wildly. He is widely believed to be the next leader of the Conservative Party and is highly popular - his position has a lot of influence.”

Dow futures were recently trading 23 points or 0.14% higher.  China's Shanghai Composite lifted 0.84%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.05% and Japan's Nikkei 0.8%.

Crude oil futures jumped 25 cents or  0.8% this morning to US$29.89 a barrel. Spot gold was $3.90 weaker at US$1,122.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.66 US cents.


Risk-on session: defensives down, cyclicals up. Oil up, gold down. Asian markets and US futures up. More than enough reason for the ASX to get the week off to a winning start. Trading: tricky morning with the CommSec misfire at the open. I was thinking about why I've stuck with them and it's the same reason I use Telstra - the Volvo reliability effect. For Iress users at least this morning was the first time in a few years the software has failed, and even today there was a workaround using the website to place orders. Not ideal, but I could trade. Got the low in ISX and took a speculator in DUB.