Thanks Brit and morning crew.
Half-time round-up:
The share market moved firmly into the red for the week as a surge in the US dollar on rate-hike speculation sapped buying interest in other financial assets.
At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was trading 55 points or 1.05% lower at 5187 with all sectors deep in the red. Leading the downswing were gold -2.7%, financials -1.6%, consumer discretionary -1.6% and consumer staples -1.2%. NAB was one of the biggest drags on the index as it traded without its dividend.
The US dollar hit a three-month high overnight after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said a December rate hike was a "live possibility".
“Sentiment towards a December hike is alive and well after Yellen’s comments,” Cameron Bagrie, chief economist at ANZ Bank New Zealand, told
Bloomberg. “The Fed needs to move for credibility reasons and start nudging markets away from the cheap money sugar pill.”
China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.4%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.33% and Japan's Nikkei added 0.65%. Dow futures were recently off nine points or less than 0.1%.
Crude oil futures bounced 20 cents this morning to US$46.52 a barrel. Spot gold was $3 stronger at US$1,109.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.45 US cents.
Rough morning for the index, perhaps because Australian shares are used by some international investors as a proxy for commodities, and a stronger US dollar is broadly negative for resources. Glenn Stevens this morning said the next move in rates here was likely to be lower - it's possible that is being seen as an admission of weakness in the economy. Trading: smarting about missing RYG - tailor-made for my approach but I held out for the extra pip and didn't get a fill. Cheap Scottish git. Had a few more air shots before getting into AJX and ZIP.
