Thanks Oscar and morning crew. Half-time round-up: Overnight...

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Overnight commodity weakness and a mild retreat on Wall Street helped drag the ASX into the red as investors pared bets ahead of central bank meetings in the US and Japan.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 14 points or 0.3% weaker at 5519 and on track for its second decline in three sessions. The energy sector slid 1.5% after crude oil hit a three-month low in the US overnight. The gold sector shed 2.3%, metals & mining 0.75% and health 1.2%. The retreat came amid uncertainty about the Bank of Japan's willingness to ramp up economic stimulus efforts at Friday's meeting.

"We think they'll deliver a bit of everything, but not quite the bazooka some may be hoping for," Frederic Neumann, co-head of economics at HSBC, told Reuters. "Our recent conversations with investors suggest that expectations are all over the place. The BoJ could simply do nothing. In the age of shock and awe, that would certainly deliver plenty of that."

The Nikkei was lately down 1.56%. China's Shanghai Composite rallied 0.47% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.8%. Dow futures were recently four points or 0.02% lower.

Crude oil futures bounced bounced four cents or 0.1% this morning to US$43.17 a barrel. Gold futures were $4.80 or 0.4% softer at US$1,323.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying 74.88 US cents.


Ho hum. Not saying it was a slow morning, but I had lunch at a quarter to 11. Better not make that a habit or I'll need a bigger kilt. Trading: PLS should have been the trade of the morning, but yet again I underestimated its capacity to bounce. Took a smidgen of the range available. Great trading stock. Now stoically waiting for VML and AGY to come good.