Thanks Endless. Half-time round-up: Shares have staged their...

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Shares have staged their biggest rally in more than a month following market-friendly statements from policy-makers in the US and China overnight.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was trading 68 points or 1.3% higher at 5451 and on course to surpass a 55-point rally on May 22. A strong morning saw all sectors rise, spearheaded by gains in gold +2.8%, metals & mining +2.8%, materials +2.5%, energy +1.7% and financials +1.3%.

The gains came after a well-received policy statement from the US Federal Reserve helped push US stocks to a record close and after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told a London audience that China will maintain “medium to high-level” growth and avoid a hard landing.

“While the Fed sounded upbeat about the economy, it certainly managed to maintain a dovish tone,” Stan Shamu, markets strategist at IG, told Bloomberg. “Adding to the positive sentiment were comments by Chinese Premier Li who reinforced his country would maintain a minimum growth rate of 7.5 percent and ruled out a China hard landing.”

The Premier's commitment failed to inspire Chinese traders, with the Shanghai Composite lately off 0.32%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rallied 0.14% and Japan's Nikkei put on 1.61%. Dow futures were recently up nine points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures rebounded 21 cents this morning to US$106.32 a barrel. Spot gold was $2 weaker at US$1,276.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 94.01 US cents.


The brakes certainly came off the market this morning after a fairly dour month. The derivatives game has something to do with it but I won't pretend to know enough to comment further. I find big rally days the hardest to trade because of the inflated opening prices, but eventually took the pullbacks in VMG, NTC and CXU when all looked marginally overdone.