daytrading march 23 afternoon

Thanks Endless. Great to have Cgull back firing on all four cylinders - makes the thread a bustling, happy place to hang out. Onya mate.

Half-time round-up:

Declines in resource stocks steered the Australian share market to its lowest level in eight days this morning before a mid-morning recovery led by the big banks.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was off 14 points or 0.3% at 4259 but well off the morning low of 4238. Gains in defensive sectors and financials (+0.2%) partially offset falls in metals & mining -1.6%, materials -1.5% and gold -1.9%. Small caps fared worse than blue chips, with the Small Ordinaries down 0.9% versus a 0.3% dip in the S&P/ASX 20. The falls followed weakness in Europe and the US after weak manufacturing data yesterday and overnight raised concerns about global growth.

"Obviously, the current issue is growth concerns from China and Europe," Stan Shamu of IG Markets told Fairfax. "Without growth, risk assets, generally, struggle so we saw commodities come off quite a bit overnight."

Asian markets followed Wall Street lower this morning. Japan's Nikkei dropped 1.06%, Shanghai 0.57% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.17%. Dow futures were recently down one point.

The dollar recovered from an overnight plunge to a two-month low. The dollar was lately buying US$1.0399 after falling as low as US$1.0378.

Crude oil futures rallied nine cents this morning to US$105.52 a barrel. Spot gold was $5.10 stronger at US$1,647.40 an ounce.


Plenty of "dip buying" in our market lately - a bullish sign. The market hasn't closed at its low for the day in more than two weeks. There were good bounce opportunities this morning in "victims" of the Mali coup - I had profitable trades in PIR and RSG. However, the most satisfying trade was one where I didn't make money: having bought WHN late yesterday, this morning's rout left me in a hole but I dug my way out by doubling up at 4.5c and dumping the lot at break-even at 4.8. Will have another look at lower levels if it gets there.