daytrading may 21 afternoon

Thanks Gttrain.

Half-time round-up:

The Australian share market erased its gains for the week as a trio of profit warnings hurt consumer stocks and industrials and Asian markets traded mixed.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 32 points or 0.6% weaker at 5177 after hitting a mid-morning low of 5160. The industrials sector fell 1.2% to its lowest level in four weeks after trading updates from Transfield and Fleetwood. The consumer discretionary sector fell 0.6% after Fantastic Holdings became the latest retailer to warn of soft trading conditions.

The gold sector surged 5% following an overnight break in the metal's run of seven losing sessions. Spot gold drifted $3.50 this morning to US$1,388 an ounce. The financials sector was the biggest drag on the index, losing 1.1%.

"Increasingly, we are reading about how Commonwealth Bank is overvalued," Bell Potter senior adviser Stuart Smith told Fairfax. "When it is up at these lofty heights like this it is vulnerable to selling. We have already got a softening in the banks."

The Reserve Bank stuck to a familiar script when it released the minutes from the last policy meeting, citing weak inflation and below-average growth as reasons for cutting the overnight cash rate to 2.75% this month. The minutes said the bank "judged that a further reduction in the cash rate was appropriate to encourage sustainable growth in the economy, consistent with achieving the inflation target".

Asian markets were mixed but little changed. Shanghai edged up 0.04%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.23% and Japan's Nikkei added 0.05%. Dow futures were recently down five points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures rallied 14 cents this morning to US$96.80 a barrel. The dollar was buying 97.87 US cents.


The profit warnings keep rolling in. A dangerous time to hold anything exposed to the downturn in mining activity. These conditions are starting to remind me of the GFC, when my end-of-day ledger regularly included four-figure losses as well as wins. I had my first losing day yesterday in a few weeks and need a few recoveries this arvo to avoid a second losing session. Had wins in SDL and AQO this morning but underwater on TSE, DOW and MAD - the bounce in FWD infected me with a bad case of over-optimism this morning. Hope others are faring better.