Daytrading May 24 afternoon

Thanks Lioness - onya.


Half-time round-up:

Australian shares marked time this morning as investors turned cautious ahead of speeches this week from Federal Reserve officials that are expected to firm up the outlook for rate increases in the US.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was eight points or 0.2% weaker at 5310 as slim gains in IT +0.7%, gold +0.4% and utilities +0.2% were outweighed by declines in telecoms -0.7%, consumer stables -0.7% and energy 0.7%.

“The market’s now trying to gauge whether the US will raise rates in June, and waiting for economic data coming out of the US,” Toshihiko Matsuno, chief strategist at SMBC Friend Securities in Japan, told Bloomberg. “If the US does raise borrowing costs, we could see some risk-avoiding moves like we had last December - the market’s wary of this. We need to confirm the revised GDP data and see what comes out of Chair Yellen’s talk.”

Asian markets retreated after a downbeat session on Wall Street overnight. China's Shanghai Composite eased 0.87%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.15% and Japan's Nikkei 0.67%. Dow futures were recently up six points or 0.03%.


"The talk on the trading floors this morning centres on the limited moves in financial markets, although some will welcome this, notably the Fed who have had a hand in creating these conditions," IG Markets strategist Chris Weston told Fairfax. "The fact the Dow Jones index traded in a 70 point range is testament to a lack of immediate catalysts. In fact, the range in the Dow equalled the lowest this year, with poor volume."

Crude oil futures dipped 10 cents or 0.2% this morning to US$47.98 a barrel. Gold futures were $4 or 0.3% softer at US$1,247.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 72.17 US cents.


Feels like we might be in one of those dreary distribution phases of the market when the instos unload as much as they can to retail before taking the index lower. Today's trading range on the XJO is a tight 17 points. Anything is possible, but the XJO is in danger of developing a rounding top, similar to the major US indices. Trading: I'm thinking of starting a subscription service where I tweet my buy prices and subscribers can all buy a pip above because that will be the low. Would have been profitable this morning in TV2, IOT and SFI. In other words, it's been a frustrating morning. Finally clambered aboard FLT below $31 and NAG at 16c. FLT is slowly taking wing, but I may be flogging a dead horse in NAG.