daytrading nov 15 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

The Australian share market plumbed a seven-week low as falls on Wall Street overnight and in China this morning overshadowed a rally in Japan.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 44 points or 1% lower at 4344 after earlier hitting its weakest level since September 27. The only sector to advance was the defensive telecoms +0.4%. Resource stocks led the rout, with the gold sector down 3.3%, metals & mining 2.2% and energy 1.1%.

"US stocks fell, and there are concerns about the developing situation in Israel, so sentiment is cautious and the outlook is cloudy and unclear," the operating officer at Tachibana Securities in Japan told Reuters.

Asian markets showed a sharp divergence as the prospect of elections and more business-friendly government helped Japan. Shanghai lost 0.7%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.99% and Japan's Nikkei put on 0.82%. Dow futures were recently down 11 points or 0.1%.

Crude oil futures eased six cents this morning to US$86.26 a barrel. Spot gold was 10 cents weaker at US$1,725.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying $US1.0366.


Gnarly morning. A lot of charts are breaking down, especially at the speccy end. My list of "hot" short-term candidates is shortening by the day. Tough times - feels like I've been through a spin-dryer this morning. There were good moments - took CAB at the open for a rebound and sold well, scalped LYC but should have done better. Then there was MSB and MPO. Oh dear. Began buying the former too early and endured a gut-churning morning before getting most away in the last hour. No such luck with MPO - hoped it would fill that gap but the institutional seller has other ideas. Why can't we all just get along?