Thanks Oscar and morning crew. Good luck this arvo, Cup punters.
Half-time round-up:
The share market unwound yesterday's end-of-month window dressing ahead of this afternoon's RBA meeting despite upbeat Chinese economic data.
At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 29 points or 0.5% weaker at 5289, erasing most of yesterday's rally. The losses were led by the energy sector -1%, telecoms -1% and consumer discretionary -0.8%. The gold sector +0.1% and utilities +0.2% resisted the downtrend.
“There is a lot of uncertainty,” Tony Farnham, strategist at Patersons Securities, told
Bloomberg. “There’s plenty happening over the next week and there’s a degree of caution around the key events.”
Trading levels were down on normal, with a public holiday in Victoria and the Melbourne Cup horse race this afternoon. The Reserve Bank meets this afternoon but is not expected to move the cash rate.
The market shrugged off news that Chinese manufacturing activity accelerated last month at the fastest pace in two years. The official purchasing managers' index improved to 51.2 from a September reading of 50.4. Economists had expected growth to hold steady around the same level. The services index also picked up, to 54 from 53.7.
The Shanghai Composite edged up 0.18%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 1.08% and Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.13%. Dow futures rallied 33 points or 0.18%.
Crude oil futures bounced four cents or 0.09% this morning to US$46.90 a barrel. Gold futures were $4.30 or 0.35% higher at US$1,277.60 an ounce. The dollar was buying 76.11 US cents.
A few years ago in a park when my youngest son was a toddler, he handed me a dog turd. Since I wasn't paying attention and was used to the kids handing me a hundred different things a day once they lost interest, I did not find out what it was until it was stinking up my hand. Why am I telling you this? Because the stock market is full of people holding turds who will have no compunction about handing them to you if you don't pay attention or don't know a dog turd when you see one. The quarterly reporting season is particularly dangerous because a lot of turds get exposed for what they are, and that leaves a lot of people looking for someone to palm them to. Be extra vigilant this week and know your turds.
