daytrading june 13 afternoon

Thanks Suzie.

Half-time round-up:

Australian shares ground lower this morning as Asian markets struggled for direction and June consumer confidence figures disappointed.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 16 points or 0.4% at 4056 after earlier setting a one-week low. A broad retreat left IT +1%, health +0.1% and consumer discretionary shares +0.1% as the only sectors to advance. Industrials -0.9% and financials -0.7% were the biggest drags as investors took to the sidelines ahead of Sunday's Greek election.

"We will probably continue to see some cautious trading even if there's good news," IG Markets analyst Stan Shamu told Fairfax. "People have still got it in the back of their head that the Greek elections are coming up. It will definitely be a major event."

Asian markets were mixed but little changed. Japan's Nikkei rallied 0.33, Shanghai fell 0.02% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.11%. Dow futures were recently down 14 points or 0.1%.

This month's rate cut did little to boost consumer confidence, figures released this morning showed. The WBC-MI index of consumer sentiment improved just 0.3% to 95.6, following May's tepid 0.8% increase.

"This is another disappointing result," Westpac chief economist Bill Evans told Fairfax. "Clearly other factors are dominating rates in the minds of consumers – those factors are concerns about the domestic economy and international conditions."

Crude oil futures sank another 78 cents this morning to US$82.70 a barrel. Spot gold was $2.40 weaker at US$1,608.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 99.36 US cents.


Not much appetite for risk this morning. Asian markets are well off their highs and oil is down pretty sharply. No sign of the ASX bucking the trend - we like to lead from behind. Been a busy morning at this trading desk but plenty of room for improvement this afternoon. Scalped RSG and ADX. Still holding ANN, MRM and MGO.