Thanks Mitta and morning crew. Half-time round-up: A relief...

Thanks Mitta and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

A relief rally on the ASX faded by lunchtime as key Asian markets opened in the red and crude oil pared overnight gains.

By 1pm EST the ASX 200 was trading just seven points or 0.1% ahead at 4916, more than 80 points off the session high of 4997 set in the first half hour of trade. The rally collapsed as the gold sector (-1.3%) traded lower and property trusts (-0.6%), telecoms (-0.5%) and financials (-0.2%) turned negative. Metals & mining was the pick of the sectors with a rise of 1.7%.

The fade accelerated as Chinese shares struggled to build on yesterday's 1.98% advance. The Shanghai Composite was last down 0.73% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng off 0.31%. Japan's Nikkei was ahead 0.62%. Dow futures were recently down 49 points or 0.3%.

“Asian markets look set for a bounce today, but its sustainability is still an open question,” Angus Nicholson, market analyst at IG, told Bloomberg. “The big unknown today is whether we have seen a sustainable bounce in Chinese equities and whether yesterday’s gains can be held onto. Some sense of stability does seem to have been wrestled into the Chinese yuan this week, but the Chinese equity markets have been more immune to muscular shows of state intervention.”

Wall Street surged higher overnight after Federal Reserve board member James Bullard said the "very substantial" collapse in the price of oil had significant implications for US rate policy. While low energy prices were a net positive for the economy, their deflationary impact made it harder for the Fed to boost inflation. Read more here.

Crude oil futures eased 43 cents this morning to US$30.77 a barrel. Spot gold was $4.60 firmer at US$1,078.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 69.66 US cents.


Ugly fade on the index. Having been wrong-footed on Wednesday, it looks like the instos have no appetite for holding over the weekend. Very interesting how bearish things have become so quickly. I'm still inclined to treat this as a standard market retrace but I'll admit it doesn't quite feel the same. Can't put my finger on it. Trading: wasted morning for me. Was in the right place when ASB cracked the dollar but got a lousy part-fill of 1,000 shares, which delivered a profit of $10 after brokerage. Barely covers a beer in a Sydney pub these days.