daytrading may 17 afternoon

Thanks Endless. No Tennents Lager for me - I came here to escape that sort of thing. (That and I was rubbish at golf - no future in Scotland if you can't play golf.)

Half-time round-up:

Australian shares have trimmed losses for the week despite a mixed morning in Asia and profit downgrades from Wesfarmers and WorleyParsons.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 21 points or 0.4% ahead at 5187 but still 30-odd points short of extending the index's three-week winning run. A broad rally saw the metals & mining sector rise 1.4%, financials 0.5%, energy 1.7% and utilities 1.1%. Consumer staples slumped 1.6% after Wesfarmers warned of weak second-half sales at Target. WorleyParsons joined the growing list of mining contractors to lower profit guidance, but the industrials sector shook early weakness to advance 0.5%.

The dollar logged another downleg this morning, dropping more than half a cent to an 11-month low. The Aussie was lately buying 97.63 US cents, nearly a cent and a half lower than this time yesterday.

"It is just in keeping with the negativity surrounding the Aussie dollar at the moment, and the positivity surrounding the US dollar," Easy Forex senior currency dealer Francisco Solar told Business Spectator. "It seems to be all one-way momentum at the moment."

There was little movement during a mixed morning on Asian markets. Shanghai edged up 0.05%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.17% and Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.19%. Dow futures were recently up 25 points or nearly 0.2%.

Crude oil futures retreated 14 cents this morning to US$95.01 a barrel. Spot gold was $2 weaker at US$1,383 an ounce.


This confession season looks like being the busiest in some years. The list of profit downgrades lengthens by the day. Bad week to have been holding any mining contractors. Meanwhile, there were early signs of stabilisation/rebounds in some of the goldies this morning - I'm not in yet but thinking about it. Been enjoying a sedate session after four days of pretty frantic trade. Took APN shortly after the open as the most overdone of yesterday's media sell-offs (thanks Rtellie for raising the alert last night). Was lucky enough to catch a part-fill in DJS at the low but not smart enough to let it run.