Thanks Endless. Trees, Mrs HLL is doing well, thanks.
Half-time round-up:
The share market has enjoyed its best session in almost two months as regional markets chased Wall Street higher and a bounce in the dollar boosted beaten-up yield stocks.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead by 76 points or 1.6% at 4772 and on track to snap a three-week losing run that at yesterday's low had knocked more than 10% off the index. The banks led the rally, pushing the financials sector up 2.5%, ahead of IT +2.2%, consumer discretionary +2.1% and metals & mining +1.9%. Health -0.4% and property trusts -0.3% were the only sectors to lose ground.
Japanese shares recovered less than half of yesterday's 6.35% tumble. The Nikkei was lately up 2.7%.
"Psychologically the market feels like we're nearly done with the correction," a Nomura strategist told Fairfax.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng bounced 1.15% but Shanghai was more cautious at -0.1%. Dow futures were recently off 28 points or 0.2%.
The dollar gave back about three-quarters of a cent this morning, recently buying 95.87 US cents. Crude oil futures eased three cents to US$96.67 a barrel. Spot gold was flat at US$1,383.90 an ounce.
Great for market confidence to see the index extend the early gains. A slow Friday fade would have been toxic. Still, it will take a few more days of consolidation/gains before the specs come back into favour. You had to be pretty selective in your spec buying this morning. I've had a good week but always struggle to find trades when the market gaps up in a big way. Took me an hour and a half to find anything this morning and I knew I was going to lose money on it within a minute of buying. Bought MSB before the penny dropped that the weakness is likely driven by the gene patent decision in the US. In situations like that, experience has taught me to take the loss quickly, then ask one of the kids to kick me up the backside.
