daytrading march 18 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Shares rallied for the first time in three sessions before paring gains after the Reserve Bank again dampened hopes for further rate cuts.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 28 points or 0.5% ahead at 5346 but off the session high of 5362. A broad rally lifted all sectors except gold -5.4%. Metals & mining +1% was the best of the sectors, followed by materials and property trusts, up 0.9%, and telecoms +0.8%.

The minutes from the last RBA meeting showed the central bank intends to leave the overnight cash rate at 2.5% "for some time if the economy was to evolve broadly as expected". The bank noted that the recent decline in the value of the dollar and rising unemployment offered no reason yet to change course. Read more here.

"While the labour market was expected to remain subdued for a while and wage growth had declined, the board observed that this was consistent with conditions in the labour market lagging behind changes in economic activity," the minutes said. "The decline in the exchange rate seen to date would assist in achieving balanced growth in the economy, though members noted that the exchange rate remained high by historical standards."

Asian markets edged higher. China's Shanghai Composite advanced 0.13%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.17% and Japan's Nikkei 1.25%. Emini Dow futures were recently down five points or less than 0.1%.

Spot gold dived $7.50 this morning to US$1,359.60 an ounce.
Crude oil futures retreated nine cents to US$97.89 a barrel. The dollar was buying 90.77 US cents.


Bright morning for bottom pickers in the likes of NEN and GBG. PGL is another revitalised dog enjoying a brisk walk - one of my favourite trading stocks a decade ago, but it's been years since it was last worth a look. I had a trawl through the beaten-up goldies this morning and got a trade out of SBM and more lately tried TAM. Also got something out of RXL's post-CR dump.