daytrading july 1 afternoon

Thanks Endless. Good to have you fully operational. Thanks again Gttrain for standing in last week.

Half-time round-up:

Australian shares tumbled more than 1.7% this morning as bleak Chinese manufacturing figures and weak US futures overshadowed upbeat domestic data.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 68 points or 1.4% weaker at 4734 after earlier falling as low as 4715 as all sectors deteriorated except gold (+3.9%). Yields stocks were among the session's biggest losers after the dollar sagged back towards 91 US cents at the end of last week. Property trusts fell 2%, financials 2% and consumer staples 1.8%.

Resource stocks surrendered early gains after June Chinese manufacturing data appeared to confirm a recent downturn in economic activity. The government-sponsored manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index dropped to 50.1 from 50.8 in May, in line with expectations and just above the 50-point level that indicates expansion. The final version of a rival index compiled by HSBC eased to 48.2 from a preliminary reading of 48.3, down from 49.2 in May. In contrast, Japan's Tankan survey showed manufacturers were optimistic about the future last quarter for the first time in two years.

The Shanghai Composite was lately little changed at +0.05%. Japan's Nikkei gave up 0.48%. Dow futures were off 11 points or 0.1%.

The morning's domestic economic data was generally market-friendly. A measure of manufacturing activity hit its highest level in two years, house prices rebounded and recent rate cuts had no obvious impact on inflation. The AiG manufacturing index improved by 5.8 points to 49.6 last month. House prices increased by 1.9% over the month, reversing May's 1.2% slide. The TDS-MI gauge of consumer prices was unchanged in June. Read more here.

The improved economic outlook helped the dollar recoup some of Friday's losses, rising nearly a third of a cent this morning to 91.68 US cents. Crude oil futures slipped 36 cents to US$96.13 a barrel. Spot gold was $6.10 firmer at US$1,241.40 an ounce.


Good old China delivers the most predictable figures since that nice Bernie Madoff gave up trading for the mailsack-sewing business. Either economists are unnaturally astute at picking the likely outcome each month, or the government looks at the consensus prediction and says, "Yeah, that'll do." Elsewhere, there seems to be quite a bit of money betting that the low in gold stocks is in, at least for the short term. The XGD has moved higher this morning after several days of basing behaviour. Took me a while to find trades this morning, partly because so few of the specs are moving and also because last week's market bounce pushed a lot of the mid-specs well above obvious horizontal support. Eventually dipped a toe with TTS and AGK and followed up with GGG and CSR. Modestly ahead or at break-even in all four, but it's subsistence stuff.