daytrading june 28 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

A positive morning on Asian markets and gains for the big banks has helped the Australian market overcome early wobbles and inch towards a third straight rise.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was eight points or 0.2% higher at 4819 after earlier dipping as low as 4795. Property trusts and financials accounted for much of the rise, advancing 1.2% and 0.6%, respectively. Industrials and telecoms were both up 0.2%. Gold -1%, utilities -0.7% and IT -0.7% were the biggest drags.

Commentators attributed the subdued performance to a return to regular trading after end-of-financial-year portfolio adjustments fuelled big gains over the last two sessions. "They seem to come back to the normal mood today, as they have mostly finished that portfolio adjustment," Biyi Cheng, head of dealing Asia Pacific at City Index, told Fairfax.

The mood on Asian markets was notably brighter. Shanghai surged 1.4%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.23% and Japan's Nikkei 3.25%. Dow futures were recently up 34 points or 0.2%.

Gold rebounded this morning after dropping to the low US$1,180s. The spot price was lately back at US$1207.10 an ounce, a rise of $7.10. Crude oil futures rallied 43 cents to US$97.26 a barrel. The dollar was buying 92.68 US cents.


No surprise to see a little market fatigue after the giant strides taken over the last two sessions. So far as I can see the XJO hasn't strung together three wins in two months, so we may be witnessing a sea change here. My morning was travelling okay until Wayne McCrae told the market he's glad CuDeco is not mining copper at these prices. Er, thanks mate - not sure that helps. I had my eye on the low $2s for an entry and got in before that market announcement, which goes down as one of the more memorable on the ASX. I know we're supposed to love his rough-and-ready, tell-it-as-he-sees-it ways but he badly needs some PR advice. Elsewhere, I had skinny wins in GGG and NST. Still holding AJQ, ANN and TAH.