The Australian share market's charge towards 5000 stalled this morning as a rally in the big banks ran out of steam amid weak housing and job ad news.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was one point or less than 0.1% weaker at 4919 after earlier hitting 4951. The broader All Ordinaries reached 4971 for the first time since April 2011 before retreating to 4941. The big miners and select defensive sectors struggled to keep the market in positive territory as financials sagged 0.2%, gold stocks 0.3% and property trusts 0.1%.
A heavy week of economic data began with a benign inflation report but disappointing housing approvals and job advertising. Consumer prices increased by 0.3% last month for an annual rate of 2.5%, well within the Reserve Bank's target band of 2-3%. Building approvals plummeted 4.4% in December, reversing November's rise of 3.4%. Job advertisements declined for an 11th straight month, falling 0.9% last month. Read more here.
Asian markets advanced after China confirmed a fourth month of expansion in services activity over the weekend. Shanghai rallied 0.58%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.87% and Japan's Nikkei 0.45%. Dow futures were recently up 15 points or 0.1%.
"[Overseas] economic news was universally good," Matthew Sherwood, head of investment markets research at Perpetual Investment, told Bloomberg. "Corporate leaders are becoming more confident about the growth outlook. Investors are starting to feel the same way, even though questions remain about the strength of corporate earnings growth."
Spot gold softened 50 cents this morning to US$1,667.90 an ounce. Crude oil futures drifted one cent to US$97.60 a barrel. The dollar was buying $US1.0428.
Kudos to those who picked ICG early and stuck with it. What a run. Still kicking myself for waiting for that extra pip of weakness to buy in when it retreated to 4C about 100% ago, lol. There's nothing quite as humbling as the stock market. It's a daily lesson in humility. Still, I shouldn't complain too loud about ICG after a great start to the week. The excitement in KOR gave me a chance to clear one kennel - it runs hard when it goes but struggles to hold its gains, as I learned after buying during the last pullback. LNC offered several scalping opportunities this morning. NVG gave a quick bounce trade at 2.3 and SLR looked fractionally overdone at 2.42. Happy days.
