daytrading oct 31 afternoon

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Australian shares have extended this week's rally to a third day, encouraged by solid construction data, rallies in much of Asia and promising US futures.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 30 points or 0.7% stronger at 4516 as a broad advance lifted all sectors. Gold was the pick of the sectors, rising 1.9%, ahead of IT +1.4%, the Small Ords +1.1% and materials +1.1%. The financials sector put on 0.5% as NAB shook off early losses after reporting a 22% decline in full-year profits.

"It's a pretty buoyant opening," Lonsec private client adviser Michael Heffernan told Fairfax. "What struck me, apart from the New York Stock exchange closing because of the storm, was that Europe was on a roll with their markets being up one and two per cent. Commodities weren't too bad either, which has helped."

Asian markets were mixed despite an overnight recovery in US futures ahead of the resumption of equity and bond trading in the US tonight. Shanghai retreated 0.11% but Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.61% and Japan's Nikkei put on 0.95%. S&P500 futures were recently up three points or 0.25%.

Building approvals jumped 7.8% in September from the previous month. Approvals were 12.4% higher than the same time last year.

Crude oil futures rallied 19 cents this morning to US$85.81 a barrel. Spot gold was $1.20 higher at US$1,711.40 an ounce. The dollar was buying $US1.0386.


Hurricane who? So far as markets are concerned, Sandy has been and gone. Nothing so ruthless as money. "Risk on" this morning in most markets - currencies, oil, gold, etc. However, I'm still finding volumes a problem. A lot of the runners from earlier in the month are collapsing from lack of support. I exited MSR at a profit after it attracted just one paltry trade in the opening hour. Scalped half a pip out of ELD and was lucky to get that. Had a long list of potential pullback buys this morning but none reached my buy prices.