Thanks Vagrants and morning regulars. Half-time round-up: Stocks...

Thanks Vagrants and morning regulars.


Half-time round-up:

Stocks this morning extended their gain for July to more than 4% as the market continued to heal from a two-month downturn caused by ructions in Greece and China.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 21 points or 0.4% ahead on the last day of the month at 5690 as a weak session for resource stocks was offset by rises elsewhere. While gold stocks declined 1.3%, energy 0.3% and metals & mining 0.3%, the health sector jumped 1.7%, utilities 1.4% and financials 0.4%.

"Major mining and energy stocks have enjoyed a good recovery over the past couple of days on the back of relief that commodity prices have stopped falling," CMC chief market analyst Ric Spooner told Fairfax. "However, the commodity price rally stalled last night leaving open the question of whether strong buying support for resource stocks can be sustained today."

Asian markets were mixed, with China's Shanghai Composite lately down 1.24%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng improved 0.34% and Japan's Nikkei was flat at +0.01%. Dow futures were recently down eight points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures slipped 29 cents this morning to US$48.23 a barrel. Spot gold was $4.50 weaker at US$1,083.90 an ounce. The dollar was buying 72.99 US cents.


The market has rallied on the last trading day of every month this year, bar April. That's likely because institutional traders whose bonuses depend on how their portfolio has performed each month have an incentive to push their stocks as high as they can. Some of those buys will be unwound on Monday, but there is no obvious pattern that implies the market always falls on the first day of a new month. Trading: I missed the spike in SYA, but jeez hasn't it  turned into a great trading stock? I did hitch a ride on another of this month's great traders - POK. Watching AJX.