Thanks Brit and morning crew. Half-time round-up: Australian...

Thanks Brit and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Australian shares edged towards a possible loss for the first time in four sessions as a downbeat outlook from Apple and a decline in crude oil depressed US equity futures.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was trading 35 points or 0.7% lower at 4971 as the local market played catch-up after yesterday's Australia Day public holiday. While Wall Street was broadly unchanged over the two sessions this week after recouping last night what it lost on Monday, US futures declined this morning after market heavyweight Apple predicted its sales will drop this year. Shares in Apple were lately down 2.57% in after-market trade following this morning's quarterly update. Dow futures were recently off 60 points or 0.38%.

Energy stocks led the retreat, falling 2.3% after US crude oil slumped 64 cents to US$30.81 a barrel. Also notably weak were financials -1.2%, telecoms -1% and utilities -0.9%. Gold +3.6%, property trusts +0.7% and metals & mining +0.4% bucked the downtrend.

Consumer inflation grew faster than expected over the last three months of last year. Annual inflation rose to 1.7% from 1.5% the previous quarter. Economists had predicted growth of 1.6%.

Asian markets were mixed. China's Shanghai Composite slid 0.64%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rallied 1.42% and Japan's Nikkei was up 2.52%.

Spot gold eased 60 cents this morning to US$1,119.60 an ounce. The dollar was buying 70.34 US cents.


Volatility on world markets remains elevated. The S&P 500 dived pretty hard on Monday, rebounded overnight. Not unusual during earnings season, but the roller-coaster pushed off weeks before then. Trading: nailed a few straight-forward low-risk, low-return bounces in SXY, CTP and LTR. Missed a few more.