Thanks Oscar and morning crew.
Half-time round-up:
Shares hit a fresh seven-week low before rebounding with crude oil and US equity futures.
At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was nine points or 0.2% ahead at 5238 and more than 35 points off the session low of 5201. Leading the reversal were defensive sectors including health +0.8%, telecoms +0.6% and gold +1.3% as investment markets remained on edge ahead of next week's tightening US presidential election.
“The move to take risk off the table continues,” Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG, told
Bloomberg. “We have reached a point where there is a buyers strike, where money managers have reduced their risk, increased cash allocations within the portfolio and are happy to ride out this mini-storm of uncertainty. This is a perfect breeding ground for short sellers who love the combination of uncertainty and lack of bids.”
The energy sector shook off early weakness to advance 0.1% as crude oil futures rallied 50 cents or 1.1% this morning to US$45.84 a barrel. US futures followed crude, with Dow futures recently ahead 28 points or 0.16%.
China's Shanghai Composite inched ahead 0.06%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.14%. Trade on Japan's Nikkei was suspended for a public holiday.
Gold futures slid $7.70 or 0.59% to US$1,300.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying 76.7 US cents.
The ASX has pre-empted the recent bout of weakness on global markets and may therefore be among the first to turn. The XJO respected the mid-September low this morning and if it's going to bounce, should start from around here. Been a tough few weeks - the falls/retraces in small caps have been larger than usual, therefore harder to read and trade. On balance I'm finishing most days ahead, but it's not unusual for half the day's profits to be cancelled out by losses - WEB yesterday was a stinger. As for today, had a piddling win in WGL, pip from MZN and skimpy profits from ADH and GNG. All modestly profitable but no real runners.
