Daytrading November 21 afternoon

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares began the week under mild pressure from a strengthening US dollar and rising bond yields.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was two points or less than 0.1% weaker at 5357 and threatening its first loss in four sessions. Yield stocks - traded by some as proxies for bonds - led the retreat, with health stocks falling 1.1%, consumer staples 0.9% and utilities 0.5%. Bucking the downtrend were gold +2%, energy +1.5% and metals & mining +0.4%.

"The upside momentum in stock markets has stalled in recent days given full valuations; the potentially negative impact of rising bond yields and signs that commodities are correcting," CMC chief market analyst Ric Spooner told Fairfax following a negative close on Wall Street on Friday. "Even so stock markets are holding their levels."

A positive morning in Asia saw China's Shanghai Composite advance 0.52%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.18% and Japan's Nikkei 0.55%. Dow futures were recently up two points or 0.01%.

Crude oil futures bounced 41 cents or 0.9% this morning to US$46.10 a barrel. Gold futures firmed $3.60 or 0.3% to US$1,212.30 an ounce. The dollar was buying 73.35 US cents.


The Trump excitement is well and truly over and we're now stuck in a sideways drift. Be good to get another rate rise over with next week, then perhaps ease into a Santa rally. We've been good this year, haven't we? Trading: not a lot of life in the pools where I was fishing. Took SIP and ALK for any minor recovery this arvo. Had several long hard looks at KAR.