Daytrading May 2 afternoon

Thanks Keyser and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

The share market suffered its biggest fall in almost a month following a soft profit update from Westpac before paring losses as gold stocks pushed to a three-year high.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 42 points or 0.8% weaker at 5210 after earlier falling as much as 75 points as an underwhelming first-half result from Westpac sent the financial sector to a two-and-a-half-week low. Financials were last down 2.8% with Westpac off 4.1%.

Gold stocks were the morning's start performer, surging 5.3% to their highest mark since April 2013, after gold futures started the week with an advance of $5.10 or 0.4% to US$1,295.60. Also strong were telecoms +2%, metals & mining +1% and the Small Ords 0.6%.

Japan's Nikkei skidded another 3.6% as the yen continued to rally against the greenback. China's Shanghai Composite shed 0.25% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.5%.

US futures suggested caution following a recent run of soft economic data. S&P 500 futures were recently off one points or 0.05%.

“Most would agree that the US economy is still in far better shape overall,” Philip Borkin, senior economist at ANZ Bank New Zealand, told Bloomberg. “But the recent softness has many mindful nonetheless, and means there is now a huge focus on this week’s US payrolls and next week’s retail sales data. While most would agree that the labour market is in reasonable health, activity data has certainly presented more of a clouded picture of late.”

Crude oil futures retreated 35 cents or 0.76% this morning to US$45.57 a barrel. The dollar was buying 76.12 US cents.


Banks copped a hiding this morning after WBC missed on most of its key indicators. Bad debts creeping up, ironically one of them the morning's best performer: SGH. Statistically, we're now into the worst month of the year for stocks, which suggests another look at 5000 is more likely than a run at 5400. Volatility is certainly up at the lower end of the market. I managed in CVT, SMA and POH.