A surge in business investment helped the share market recoup most of yesterday's losses as mining stocks overcame weakness in commodity prices.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was trading 17 points or 0.3% ahead at 5350, within a few points of where the index closed on Tuesday. The rally was spearheaded by health +0.9%, consumer discretionary +0.7%, financials +0.6% and materials +0.5%.
The index extended gains following the 11.30am EST release of unexpectedly stronger quarterly capex figures. Investment increased 3.6% during the September quarter. Economists had predicted a reversal of 1.2% following a 4% jump in the June quarter.
"In terms of the planned investment outlook, this data is probably as good as you could have hoped for," Macquarie Bank senior economist Brian Redican told Fairfax. "Overall expectations have remained fairly steady, and that's actually a good thing - that there haven't been future downgrades over the last three months."
Asian markets rose en masse. China's Shanghai Composite put on 0.57%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.71% and Japan's Nikkei 1.24%. Dow futures were recently up 23 points or more than 0.1% ahead of Friday's truncated Thanksgiving session.
Crude oil futures slipped another 16 cents this morning to US$92.20 a barrel. Spot gold recovered $1.50 to US$1,239.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying 91.26 US cents.
Not often you make a couple of weeks wages and still feel you left too much on the table. FGE was one of those rebound opportunities that only come along every six months or so, if that. I'm pained at narrowly missing the second dip to 30c at the start of the run. Failed to chase and had to wait for pullbacks. Got two good trades out of it but should have done better. Also had a piddling part-fill in NWE that amounted to beer money.
