Australian shares are on track for their seventh winning week in eight despite a lacklustre session amid soft US futures and strength in Asia.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was eight points or 0.2% ahead at 5117 as strength in resource stocks, consumer stocks, small caps and utilities offset a flat morning for the big banks and falls in industrials and a few defensive sectors. A finish at these levels would be the index's highest close since September 2008.
US futures drifted south despite after-market news this morning that 17 out of 18 of the US's largest banks had passed stress tests designed to see how they would weather a serious recession. The government majority-owned Ally Financial was the only bank to fail because it did not have enough capital set aside. Read more here. S&P futures were recently off one and a quarter points or 0.1%.
Asian markets rallied ahead of Chinese trade data due today. Shanghai put on 0.25%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.74% and Japan's Nikkei 1.62%.
Crude oil futures gave back 10 cents this morning at US$91.44 a barrel. Spot gold was $2.30 firmer at US$1,579.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying $US1.026.
Bit of a nothing session to end the week. Can't complain too hard while the general trend remains up. Been mainly what the Yanks would call nickel and dime stuff for me this morning. Held BLY overnight for the first time since this retreat began - looked overdone after losing about a third of its value in a few weeks. Nihilism was kind enough yesterday to suggest I must be rich. Alas, my strength as a trader is in picking entries and my great failing is an inability to let profits runs. That is enough to make a decent living, but not enough to generate great wealth. Hence I took a profit too early in BLY this morning and repeated the feat in EGP off the low. More recently picked up some PRY which I will also likely sell too soon. FWIW I'll add my support for Giz as the most consistently impressive trader here, with nods to Poly2006, Treasure, McKagan and former DT stalwarts PJSimon and Exitstageright, wherever they are.
