daytrading nov 18 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Australian stocks retreated for the first time in three sessions despite positive leads from Wall Street and gains in Asia this morning.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was trading 23 points or 0.4% in the red at 5378 as all sectors lost ground. At -0.2%, materials, metals & mining and I.T. were the best of the bunch, followed by financials and telecoms -0.4%.

IG market strategist Stan Shamu attributed the unexpected setback to caution over the Chinese government's economic reforms announced on Friday. "Once China opens up, we'll get a bit more direction as to what some of these comments mean for credit markets and confidence in China going forward," Mr Shamu told Fairfax.

Any concerns were not reflected in Asian trade, where China's Shanghai Composite advanced 1%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.92% and Japan's Nikkei 0.28%. Dow futures were recently off six points or less than 0.1%.

Crude oil futures eased five cents this morning to US$93.61 a barrel. Spot gold was $3.90 softer at US$1,285.70 an ounce. The dollar was buying 93.68 US cents.


Can't find any obvious explanation for this morning's retreat beyond the Stan Shamu comment quoted above. The Communist Party released more detail over the weekend about the Plenum policy decisions - may be something there the market doesn't like. Read more here. Chinese traders don't seem to share the concern. A low-key but straight-forward morning at this trading desk - took RCG at 66c and AWE at $1.19 for a solid wage.