Thanks Endless. Half-time round-up:Australian shares were little...

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Australian shares were little changed this morning as Asian markets traded mixed and US futures wallowed in the red.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was off one point or less than 0.1% at 4325 after hitting 4342 in early trade. A strong morning for resource stocks and small caps was offset by declines in financials and defensive sectors. Gold stocks jumped 3.4%, metals & mining 2.3% and the Small Ordinaries 0.8%.

Asian markets were mixed following Friday's boom session on the back of the announcement of 60 big-ticket infrastructure projects in China. Shanghai rallied 0.32% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng put on 0.42%. Japan's Nikkei retreated 0.13%. Dow futures were recently off 26 points or 0.2%.

July home loans data continued the recent run of soft domestic housing news. Approvals declined 1% from June. Economists had predicted no change.

"There is a stand-off between buyers and sellers; buyers are still holding on for cheaper prices while sellers are expecting a little more return," CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian told Fairfax.

Crude oil futures improved four cents this morning to US$96.33 a barrel. Spot gold was 50 cents firmer at US$1,738.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying $US1.0384.


Trading volumes have been improving steadily since the end-of-June turn-around, but haven't translated into any real progress for the XJO in three weeks. Let's hope this week produces a solid move in one direction or the other. The dividend season occasionally produces opportunities where sell-offs overshot - DWS was an example of that this morning and offered a day's wage. Small speculator in CWN on the retest of the breakout. Apart from that I've been half a cent/a cent too low with buy orders this morning.