daytrading march 6 afternoon

Thanks Gttrain.

Half-time round-up:

Unexpectedly strong trade and retail data helped the share market trim its first fall in three sessions.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was seven points or 0.1% lower at 5438 and trading well above the morning low of 5406. Gold +1%, industrials +0.6% and consumer discretionary +0.2% were the pick of the sectors. Health -1.1% and consumer staples -0.5% were the worst.

The morning recovery accelerated after the 11.30am EST release of data showing consumer spending and trade activity defying a recent run of soft economic data. Retail sales improved 1.2% in January, versus expectations for a rise of 0.4%. The trade surplus increased to a 29-month high of $1.433 billion in the same month from a surplus of $591 million in December, also well ahead of expectations. The news helped the dollar jump around half a cent, recently buying 90.21 US cents.

China's Shanghai Composite dropped 0.1%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng and Japan's Nikkei both advanced 0.43%. Emini Dow futures were recently up nine points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures eased another five cents this morning to US$100.97 a barrel. Spot gold was 40 cents firmer at US$1,338 an ounce.


Very hard to get a read on the economy at present, with big headline job losses, declining employment and soft consumer confidence pointing one way and house prices, retail spending and exports pointing another. You would have to be an economist to imagine you can make sense of all that. My day has been a repeat/continuation of yesterday. Went back to ASB for a second day and a much better result. Got out of FMS with a profit so slim that Keira Knightly couldn't hide behind it. Traded ACR successfully once, went back for more and now await the next swing.