Thanks Oscar and morning crew. Bit of house-keeping: have decided to take the family away for the rest of the week (time expands exponentially during school holidays) and would appreciate a volunteer to open the afternoon threads for the next three days (Wed-Fri). Any takers please? I could talk up the perks, but, well, you know...
Half-time round-up:
Shares pared sharp early losses as US equity futures rallied strongly during the first of three US presidential debates.
At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was down 41 points or 0.8% at 5390 after earlier falling as much as 59 points after US stocks shed nearly 1% overnight. The market began to pare its losses as Dow futures jumped 89 points or 0.5% as Hillary Clinton - seen as the safer, more predictable of the two presidential candidates - held her own in debate against wild card Donald Trump. The US dollar declined and the Mexican peso - seen as a proxy for anti-Trump sentiment - surged.
“The peso started the debate near its weakest levels but at least the first 30 minutes or so looks to have been taken as a Hillary win," Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac, told
Bloomberg. "The peso, Canadian dollar, S&P futures and Australian dollar are all surging - very much a relief rally in risk assets.”
Defensive sectors rallied, including gold +1.2% and health +0.2%. The biggest drags on the market were IT -1.4% and financials -1.1%.
A mixed morning in Asia featured a rise of 0.04% on China's Shanghai Composite and 0.7% on Hong Kong's Hang Seng. Japan's Nikkei dipped 0.33%.
Crude oil futures slid 13 cents or 0.29% this morning to US$45.81 a barrel. Gold futures were $5.30 or 0.39% weaker at US$1,338.80 an ounce. The dollar was buying 76.46 US cents.
Clinton seems to be landing enough punches to soothe market nerves over a possible Trump presidency, for now at least. Long way to go before the election. There will be fireworks. Should be good for volatility. Trading: buying NOX yesterday paid off. Also got a good bounce out of BLG to make up for a loss last week.
