daytrading jan 29 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Australian shares played catch-up with overseas markets this morning, rallying for a ninth straight day to a new 21-month high.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead 46 points or 1% at 4882, a level last seen in April 2010. The rally was fuelled by gains in health stocks +2.4%, utilities +1.3%, telecoms +1.2% and financials +1.2%. Gold stocks were notably weak, falling 2.4%. The metals and mining sector eased 0.2% with some stocks affected by floods along the east coast.

"The major lead is in the banks," IG Markets strategist Evan Lucas told Fairfax. "The lead that we have been seeing is that yield hunters are continuing to look for that quasi-bond play and that would be the main reason why we're seeing them jump in."

The gains came as the market chased a 2.43% rally in Shanghai yesterday and a rise of 0.06% so far today. Hong Kong's Hang Seng dipped 0.16% this morning and Japan's Nikkei put on 0.65%. Dow futures were recently up one point or less than 0.1%.

Business confidence rebounded last month from US "fiscal-cliff" lows in November. NAB's monthly business confidence index rose to +3 from -9 the previous month. Business conditions improved to -4 from -6 in November.

"When combined with particularly weak activity readings in the preceding three monthly surveys, the December monthly survey provided further evidence that the Australian economy slowed into the back end of 2012," NAB told Fairfax.

Crude oil futures rallied 14 cents this morning to US$96.66 a barrel. Spot gold was $2.90 firmer at US$1,657.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying $US1.0436.


Interesting morning. The market is up strongly, but aside from the banks it's defensive sectors doing a lot of the heavy lifting. The goldies aren't half copping a pounding. The likes of KCN, OGC, SBM, NST, RSG and RMS are trading like gold has fallen a lot more than a bit above US$10 since the ASX closed on Friday. I picked up SBM this morning, missed the first piddling bounce opp and now live in hope. Also scalped EDE, NST and BTR. Recently added IRE.