Daytrading January 8 afternoon

Thanks Brit and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

A volatile morning on the ASX saw shares swing more than 90 points after hitting a three-week low as Chinese regulators struggled to stabilise markets.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 25 points or 0.5% lower at 4985, well above a three-week low of 4940 set in the first 15 minutes of trade but short of the session high of 5034 hit as Chinese policymakers halted a run of cuts to the yuan that unsettled global markets this week. Overnight, regulators announced they were abandoning a system of 'circuit-breakers' that forced the market to close after just 28 minutes of trade yesterday. The moves initially helped the Shanghai Composite advance more than 2%, but the rally soon faltered. The Shanghai Composite was lately up 0.58% after briefly sliding more than 2%.

“There’s not a lot of stability in terms of policy management in China,” Matthew Sherwood, head of investment strategy at Perpetual, told Bloomberg. “They are very much making it up as they go and there’s no doubt that has been quite a common trend from policy makers in the post global-financial-crisis world. It causes large market volatility as people in markets don’t like uncertainty.”

Back in Australia, the gold sector rallied 1.5% to a ten-week high as elevated volatility on world markets encouraged haven buying. The energy sector also bucked the downtrend, rising 1.7%. Hit hardest by the morning's selling were I.T. -2%, consumer discretionary -1.1% and the Small Ords -0.9%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng rallied 0.97% and Japan's Nikkei 0.39%. Dow futures were recently ahead 71 points or 0.43%.

Crude oil futures rebounded 65 cents this morning to US$33.92 a barrel. Spot gold was $5 weaker at US$1,103.30 an ounce. The dollar was buying 70.4 US cents.


Wild morning both here and in Shanghai. I've rewritten this wrap four times in the last hour. Every time I blink the Shanghai Composite has changed direction. However the session finishes up, in DT terms it looks as if today was a 'buy the open' day. Seemed likely, but I lacked the nads to go in hard after a day off (thanks for covering yesterday, Mitta). BAL hit an obvious support level for a low-risk entry. Seemed like everyone and his/her dog was on SPO. Me too. Two out of two but felt like I should have had a lot more.