DT March 21 afternoon

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares declined for a second day following a third night of downward drift in the US as global markets await fresh direction.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was four points or 0.1% softer at 5775 as falls in telecoms -0.8%, metals & mining -0.7% and financials -0.3% outweighed gains in industrials +1%, utilities +0.8% and consumer discretionary +0.6%.

Overnight, the S&P 500 in the US lost 0.2% as traders fretted over the market's remarkable run of low volatility. At last night's close the index marked 109 sessions since early October without a decline of at least 1%.

"I think a lot of people are just on hold and sort of waiting to go in either direction," Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Boston Private Wealth in the US, told CNBC. "The market is just waiting for its next catalyst; there hasn't been one in the past few weeks."

China's Shanghai Composite rallied 0.15% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.59%. Japan's Nikkei fell 0.22%. Dow futures were recently up 26 points or 0.12%.

Crude oil futures bounced 15 cents or 0.31% this morning to US$48.37 a barrel. Gold futures fell $4 or 0.3% to US$1,230 an ounce. The dollar was buying 77.26 US cents.


I guess there's a bunch of traders here now who have never seen real market volatility. By that I mean waking up in the morning and finding the Dow fell 3% overnight and everything you hold is going to open miles below its last close. That sharpens your thinking. Also destroys your capacity to sleep at night. 2008 made insomniacs out of a lot of us. Could be years before we see a repeat of those sorts of conditions, but it's worth knowing that these are unusually benign times on the market. Trading: I'll take volatility over this any day. One gone-nowhere trade in VRT.