Shares slipped to a seven-week low this morning after a tightening presidential race rattled Wall Street overnight, sending Asian markets and US equity futures lower.
At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 58 points or 1.1% lower at 5232 after earlier touching the benchmark index's weakest point since mid-September. The index's second loss of the week put it on track for a possible fourth straight weekly loss amid growing signs that wildcard Donald Trump may snatch next week's US presidential election. US stocks declined 0.68% to a sixth straight loss, closing at their lowest level since July.
“It was always likely that investors were going to be cautious in the lead-up to next week’s election,” Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, told Bloomberg. “However, with polls suggesting that Donald Trump’s prospects are improving, that caution is translating into nervousness.”
A flight to safety saw the gold sector rise 2.4% and telecoms 0.3%. Hardest hit were IT -2.4%, health -2.1% and consumer discretionary -1.8%.
China's Shanghai Composite shed 0.27%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.09% and Japan's Nikkei 1.25%. Dow futures were recently off 39 points or 0.22%.
Crude oil futures deteriorated 29 cents or 0.62% this morning to US$46.38 a barrel. Gold futures were $3.60 or 0.28% stronger at US$1,291.60 an ounce. The dollar was buying 76.46 US cents.
Thanks for all the thumbs yesterday - gulp, tough act to follow. Trading thought for the day: successful trading is the art of making more money than you lose. Not an original thought, but a powerful tool once the implications are understood and fully embraced. The key to its meaning is that you should expect to lose money. Not every trade - then you'd definitely be doing it wrong - but a significant percentage. It's a cost of doing business. You can't trade without being wrong, sometimes. It's refusing to accept the possibility that they might be wrong that keeps people in losing trades, gives them permission to ignore stop-losses and allows them to ride shares all the way to the bottom and in some cases suspension and the total loss of their capital. Accepting the possibility of losses is liberating. If you expect to lose money (sometimes), selling losing trades becomes easier. You have removed a psychological block to your success. Traders only survive and prosper if their wins are greater than their losses. And yes, that includes paper losses. Cutting losses is never going to be fun - there is psychological pain attached to admitting mistakes - but you can make it easier by embracing the inevitability of occasional loss as part of your trading plan: 'I will lose money sometimes and that's okay.' The market gives feedback every day on whether or not a trade is working out. Successful traders recognise losing trades quickly, cut their losses and move on.
