Daytrading July 4 afternoon

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares shook off early weakness to move higher for a fourth session despite a public holiday in the US tonight and the prospect of a minority government at home.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 16 points or 0.3% head at 5262 after earlier falling as much as 28 points following Saturday's inconclusive federal election. Gold stocks led the turnaround, jumping 5.4% to a three-and-a-half-year high as a dip in the US dollar helped drive gold up $15.80 or 1.2% this morning to US$1,354.80 an ounce. Also strong were metals & mining +3.3%, materials +2.3% and the Small Ords +1.5%. The financial and telecoms sectors slipped 0.7% amid uncertainty about the outcome of Saturday's election.

“It looks like another three years of de facto minority government, which is not a great outcome for the economy and investment markets,” Shane Oliver at AMP, told Bloomberg.

"Markets don’t like uncertainty and this will impact sentiment in the short term,” Niv Dagan, executive director at Peak Asset Management, told Bloomberg. “The big factor is consumer and business confidence and in this environment, that will remain fragile. The uncertainty will rattle markets.”

Asian markets were upbeat. China's Shanghai Composite put on 1.21%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.52% and Japan's Nikkei 0.45%. Dow futures were recently ahead 21 points or 0.12% ahead of tonight's Independence Day market holiday.

Crude oil futures eased two cents or less than 0.1% this morning to US$48.97 a barrel. The dollar was buying 75 US cents.


Good to see the XJO peer into the political abyss, then take a deep breath and get on with it. Going to take a few days, at least, to sort out the electoral mess, perhaps a couple of weeks. Depressing that once again the nation's political direction may end up resting with the likes of Katter, Lambie and Hanson. Trading: a morning of modest achievement, at best. Tentative position in RAP, also AEE once it came back far enough.