daytrading sep 2 afternoon

Thanks Endless. Welcome back, buddy.

Half-time round-up:

The share market hit a 15-week high this morning as upbeat Chinese economic news and a stay on western intervention in Syria boosted US futures.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 36 points or 0.7% stronger at 5171 after earlier hitting 5188, its highest level since May. A broad rally lifted all sectors except gold -0.9%, utilities -0.7% and metals & mining -0.1%. IT +1.9% was the best of the sectors, succeeded by consumer discretionary +1.7%, health +1.1%, industrials +1.1% and telecoms +1.1%.

The gains came after US President Barack Obama sought Congressional approval for intervention in Syria, delaying any military action until next week at the earliest, and as manufacturing data confirmed the resilience of the Chinese economy. The final version of HSBC's purchasing managers' index this morning came in unchanged from the preliminary reading of 50.1. Read more here. The official government reading, released yesterday, was a more bullish reading of 51.

"This will reinforce views of China stabilisation," Citi's global head of G10 FX strategy told Reuters. "It is risk positive, if only because it removes some of the short-term risk that the China slowdown could spiral further downwards."

US stock futures this morning this morning signalled a possible rebound this week following the S&P 500's worst monthly performance in 15 months. S&P futures were recently up 9.5 points or 0.6%.

The manufacturing reports did little to improve sentiment in China, where the Shanghai Composite was lately down 0.66%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rallied 1.68% and Japan's Nikkei put on 0.71%.

Oil and gold continued to trim Syrian risk premiums. Crude oil futures slumped $1.71 this morning to US$106.05 a barrel. Spot gold gave up $6.30 at US$1,390.20 an ounce. The dollar was buying 89.66 US cents.

A heavy swag of domestic economic data this morning included disappointing company operating profits, upbeat housing news and a benign inflation reading. Gross corporate operating profits dropped 0.8% last quarter, versus expectations for a rise of 0.7%. Approvals for new houses jumped 10.8% in July and capital-city house prices were 5.3% higher compared to the same month last year. Inflation increased by 0.1% last month. The AIG August performance of manufacturing index improved to 46.4 from 42 in July but remained well below the 50-point level that divides contraction from expansion.



A very bullish move on the index if it can hold most of these gains. Our market appears more excited about the Chinese factory reports than the Chinese do - likely explains why the XJO has fallen back. US futures should also be taken with a pinch of salt with the market closed tonight for a public holiday. Been another low-key morning at this trading desk. I'm still flu-addled and running at about 20% capacity. Caught the early bounce in DYE for a wage. CWE coming good from Friday - another good fib bounce. AZM yet to play ball.