daytrading feb 25 afternoon

Thanks Gttrain.

Half-time round-up:

The share market hit a five-and-a-half-year high this morning before surrendering gains as a deteriorating iron ore price weighed on the big miners.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was one point or less than 0.1% lower at 5439 after earlier touching 5461, the index's highest point since June 2008. Gains in gold +1.9%, health +0.8%, industrials +0.4% and financials +0.1% outweighed declines of 0.7% in materials and 0.6% in metals & mining after the price of iron ore dropped below US$120 a tonne yesterday for the first time since July.

"As long as the news flow remains reasonable, we will break through new highs for global shares," Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at AMP, told Bloomberg. "The global economy looks OK. For the time being we’re still going to see more upside."

Asian markets recovered some of yesterday's losses. China's Shanghai Composite rallied 0.16%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.35% and Japan's Nikkei 1.45%. Emini Dow futures were recently up 12 points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures eased 13 cents this morning to US$102.53 a barrel. Spot gold declined $2.60 to US$1,334.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 90.34 US cents.


A cautious session. The market has moved in a straight line off the Feb 5 low and you would expect some consolidation before it has a serious go at a breakout. Often takes two or three attempts before the ceiling cracks. I've been scratching my head about the disparity between the divergent directions of the iron ore price and the big two miners. Something had to give. I scalped RMX and AIO successfully but took BRL too soon.