daytrading may 16 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Shares look set to close higher for the week despite a pullback this morning as regional markets retreated as talk of a global correction continued.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 26 points or 0.5% weaker at 5484 with all sectors except utilities (+0.1%) trading in the red. Hardest hit were consumer discretionary stocks -1%, the Small Ords -0.8% and financials -0.7%.

The declines followed falls on Wall Street overnight during a 'flight to safety' that saw substantial gains in bond markets.

"Ongoing low inflation and full stock valuations have some investors seeing relative value in bonds compared to equities at present," Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, told Bloomberg. "The post-global financial crisis economic recovery will be a long, slow haul characterised by ongoing sub-trend growth in the major economies."

Rivkin global investment manager Tim Radford told Fairfax: "The biggest near-term concern is the fact US equity markets haven’t had a large scale correction in over two years, with stocks losing momentum fast. This market will crack at some point. There will be solid correction of +10%. And it could come sooner rather than later. Everyone is long, investors are scared, and for no real reason we could see a panic selloff eventuate, seeing investors all head for the door at once. But who knows when this will exactly happen."

China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.27%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.67% and Japan's Nikkei 1.72%. Dow futures were off six points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures bounced 46 cents this morning to US$102.02 a barrel. Spot gold was 40 cents weaker at US$1,295.90 an ounce. The dollar was buying 93.66 US cents.


Scruffy old morning. My trades are all over the place. Wins in WSA, DNA and ARI. Underwater in NEC and a hail Mary in PYC (intraday only). Glad the CDB fiasco had a happyish ending. Dismal that TAH releases information today that was obviously known to some parties yesterday.