daytrading feb 24 pre-market

Morning traders.

Market wrap:

Upbeat US economic news pushed Wall Street to multi-year closing highs overnight, positioning Australian shares for their strongest open in more than two months.

The March SPI 200 futures contract ended the night session 13 points or 0.4% ahead at 4273 as investors took hope from fresh evidence of resilience in the US economy.

The Dow rose to a four-year high, closing within a few points of the psychologically significant 13,000 level after jobless claims and house prices beat expectations. The blue chips put on 46 points or 0.36% to finish at 12,985. The S&P 500 added 0.43% and the Nasdaq 0.81%. The Russell 2000 index of small caps surged 1.54%, showing risk appetite remains strong.

"The recovery is starting to pick up speed," the senior investment officer for Chemung Canal Trust in the US told Bloomberg. "There was so much fear about what was happening in Europe that people couldn't see through all of that."

Applications for unemployment benefits held steady last week at a four-year low, further confirmation that the jobs market is healing despite the slowest post-recession recovery since the 1940s. A gauge of house prices increased 0.7% in December, raising hopes that the housing market is bottoming after several years of decline.

European markets ended mixed after the European Commission cut its growth outlook and said the euro-zone was in mild recession. The downgrade undermined an initial rally following an unexpectedly large rise in German business confidence this month. Britain's FTSE put on 0.36%, Germany's DAX lost 0.5% and France's CAC ended flat.

US oil settled at a new nine-month high following a smaller-than-expected increase in US inventories. Crude for April delivery was recently up $1.88 or 1.8% at US$108.17 barrel.

A slump in the US dollar helped gold maintain its bull-run, pushing to its highest level since mid-November. Gold for April delivery was lately ahead $10.20 or 0.6% at US$1,781.50 an ounce.

Industrial metals wobbled as traders absorbed the demand implications of the EC's recession warning. In London, copper fell 0.5%, aluminium 0.3%, nickel 0.4% and zinc 0.6%. Lead rallied 0.7% and tin 0.4%. US copper was recently down 0.5%.

"The outlook for the euro-zone economy is weighing on sentiment," a consultant at Quantitative Commodity Research told Reuters. "If the euro-zone is in a recession and is importing less, this has implications [for] Chinese exports and Chinese growth, which will impact base metals."

TRADING THEMES TODAY

TWO-MONTH HIGH: You wouldn't want to be shorting the major indexes just yet because this global rally just keeps grinding higher. The XJO will this morning likely have its strongest open in two months but after that, who knows. It has struggled to make much headway beyond 4300 lately and Fridays tend to be "fade days" as traders close positions ahead of the weekend. Base metals mostly weakened overnight, another negative, while oil soared. However, a gun night for US small caps shows risk appetite remains very strong right now so let's make hay.

ECONOMIC NEWS: Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens is due to testify before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics from 9.30am EST today. The Conference Board's monthly leading index for China is scheduled for 1pm but doesn't seem to have much impact. Another fairly light US schedule tonight includes new home sales, revised consumer sentiment and revised inflation expectations.

Good luck to all.