Australian stocks retreated for a third morning as rallies in US futures, oil, gold and most Asian markets were outweighed by falls among the big banks after a downbeat outlook from the Commonwealth Bank.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 28 points or nearly 0.7% at 4137 after a modest early rally faded. Financial shares were the biggest drag on the market, declining 1.3% after CBA delivered a gloomy assessment of banking conditions despite a third-quarter profit of $1.75 billion.
Bargain-hunters pushed the battered gold sector up 0.7%, metals & mining 0.3% and materials 0.2% as oil and gold recovered some of their overnight losses. Crude oil futures rallied 38 cents this morning to US$93.17 a barrel. Spot gold was $6.30 stronger at US$1,546.10 an ounce.
US futures turned positive this morning as most Asian markets advanced. Dow futures were recently up 51 points or 0.4%. Japan's Nikkei eased 0.2% but Shanghai put on 0.31% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng rallied 0.53%.
The dollar was buying 99.38 US cents.
CBA seems to have put paid to any hope of a bounce this morning. Apparently we're not borrowing enough or paying enough interest. Selfish. Still, at least there was the first hint of bargain hunting among the miners. I looked at a few this morning but didn't have the nads to go in early. For those who did there was good value in the likes of AQG, AQA and PEN. Instead I caught bounces in CCU and SDL. More recently added FWD, tight stop.
