daytrading nov 4 afternoon

Thanks Endless. Half-time round-up:

Australian shares surged this morning and held their gains despite a lowered economic growth outlook from the Reserve Bank and signs that Greece's government is near collapse.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was ahead for the first time this week, rising 95 points or 2.3% to 5266. The rally recouped more than half of the losses suffered by the benchmark index over the last four sessions.

The big miners led the rally, driving the metals & mining sector up 3.5%. All sectors were trading higher, including gold +2.5%, property trusts +2.5%, industrials +2.2% and financials +2.2%.

"There's less risk today because people are a little less concerned that Greece will run on its own direction," the chief investment officer at Boston Advisors told Bloomberg. "It sounds like there is some progress and the markets moved up. We think the ECB [overnight rate cut was] helpful. It's better to aggressively attack these issues than sit idly by."

The market shrugged off a downbeat assessment of the economic outlook from the Reserve Bank. The central bank downgraded its GDP forecast for this year from 3.25% last quarter to 2.75% and its inflation target for the year from 3% to 2.5%. The bank also used its quarterly monetary policy statement to warn that these predictions would be undermined by any deterioration in Europe's debt crisis.

"The bank's central scenario continues to be one in which the European authorities do enough to avert a disaster, but are not able to avoid periodic bouts of considerable uncertainty and volatility," the RBA said in a statement quoted on Fairfax. "A worse outcome in Europe would adversely affect the Australian economy, and underlying inflation would be likely to decline."

The Greek government's hold on power loosened this morning when the main opposition party rejected an offer from Prime Minister George Papandreou to form a joint national government. The move raises the possibility of elections and further delays if the government loses a confidence vote scheduled tonight.

Asian markets bounced back from four days of losses. Japan's Nikkei rallied 1.27%, Shanghai 1.01% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 3.11%. Dow futures were recently off 17 points or less than 0.2%.

Crude oil futures slid 30 cents this morning to US$93.73 a barrel. Spot gold was $4 weaker at US$1,760.30 an ounce. The dollar was buying US$1.0408.


A very welcome relief rally this morning but it didn't translate into a lot of movement, so far as I could see. All the gains were built into the open and then... zip. As someone who prefers to buy pullbacks, these big gap opens are often non-events. I've waited all morning for a buy signal. Still waiting.