Thanks Brit and morning crew. Half-time round-up: Australian...

Thanks Brit and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Australian stocks inched towards a fifth straight advance as mildly positive US equity futures helped offset further weakness in key commodities this morning.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was 21 points or 0.4% ahead at 5277 and within reach of its highest close in more than three weeks. Gain in traditional yield sectors - consumer staples +2%, health +0.9%, property trusts +0.9% - outweighed a soft session for resource stocks: gold -2.5%, metals & mining -1.9%, materials -1.1% and energy -0.2%.

The falls in miners followed a soft start to the week for several commodities as the US dollar edged higher. Crude oil futures cents dropped 75 cents or 1.7% this morning to US$41.17 a barrel. Spot gold was $6.20 weaker at US$1.071 an ounce. US copper was down 1.1% at US2.03. The Australian dollar was down half a cent at 71.9 US cents.

US futures rallied amid reports that Pfizer and Allergan are close to US$150 billion merger announcement. Dow futures were recently up 12 points or 0.1%. China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.16% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dipped 0.18%. Trading on Japan's Nikkei was suspended for a public holiday.


Good to see the index keep pushing through the headwinds. Pity the action this week is likely to tail off from Wednesday with the US winding down for the Thanksgiving public holiday on Thursday and a low-volume half-session on Friday (many traders take a long weekend). Trading: terrific early opportunity in ONC. I made good money without getting anything like the full range of the rebound. Also scalped the bounce in LOM and continue to hold CLQ from this morning.