Australian shares rallied for the first time in four sessions despite a mid-morning wobble as news of a slump in exports weighed on the dollar.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was trading 57 points or 1.1% ahead at 5433 with all sectors advancing except gold -0.6%. A morning of strong gains included consumer staples +2%, metals & mining +1.4%, industrials +1.3% and financials +1.1%. The rally followed an overnight push on Wall Street to record levels.
“Economic conditions continue to look reasonably favourable and the US continues to recover,” Angus Gluskie of White Funds Management told Bloomberg. “People view the market broadly favourably.”
The market temporarily pared gains following the 11.30am EST release of data showing exports during May were 5% lower than the same month last year. Imports were down 1%, raising the trade gap to $1.91 billion, wall above estimates. The dollar fell around a quarter of a cent, lately buying 94.57 US cents.
China's Shanghai Composite edged up 0.06%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.04% and Japan's Nikkei 0.51%. Dow futures were recently up 13 points or less than 0.1%.
Crude oil futures were sitting at US$105.39 a barrel. Spot gold was at US$1,324.70 an ounce.
Challenging morning here for reasons that have little to do with trading, so no trades to report. Be wonderful if technology worked consistently. Well done to the BML crew - not often a share runs that hard into a suspension and then goes on with it. Big buying pre-announcement is often a warning sign that insiders are getting set to sell into the post-announcement bounce. Been caught out that way a few times. Watching ERM among others - anyone here follow it? Can't tell if those huge sell orders are legit or blocks to get an entry at lower levels.
