Thanks Brit and morning crew for today, and Keyser for filling...

Thanks Brit and morning crew for today, and Keyser for filling in yesterday - much appreciated.


Half-time round-up:

Australian shares pared early losses to reach the halfway mark of the session unchanged for the week despite falls across Asia and an inflation downgrade from the RBA.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 27  points or 0.5% weaker at 5252, exactly where the index ended last week after three weeks of gains. Resource stocks did most of the heavy lifting, with the gold sector rising 3%, metals & mining 1.3% and materials 1%. The morning's biggest drags were energy -1.7%, utilities -1.1% and financials -0.8%.

A downbeat morning saw Asian markets retreat, but the decline on Japan's Nikkei was modest after a three-day public holiday. China's Shanghai Composite gave up 0.66%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.15% and Japan's Nikkei 0.71%. Dow futures were recently down 21 points or 0.12%.

"Markets at the moment are increasingly looking like they may be ready to roll over," IG Markets analyst Angus Nicholson told Fairfax. "The two decisive factors that could cause an equity market sell-off would be a sustained rally in the US dollar and a sell-off in the oil price, both of which have usually induced weakness in equities of late."

The dollar fell more than  half a cent to 74 US cents after the Reserve Bank slashed its inflation outlook, raising expectations that the bank could cut the cash rate again before the year is out. The bank now expects core inflation to be 1 to 2 percent this year, down from the 2 to 3 percent it forecast in February. Read more here.

Crude oil futures reversed 18 cents or 0.4% this morning to US$44.14 a barrel. Gold futures were $10 or 0.8% firmer at US$1,282.40 an ounce.


Trading: the opening fall on the index was too deep to make sense, so I loaded up on the likes of TTS, DLX, BTT and ALL for what turned into a good recovery. You need to have a few ways to make a living in this game. Either that or be so outstandingly good at one thing that you make enough to sit out the droughts between opportunities. I don't have that kind of talent, so I'm pretty much always in the market.