Pre - market Trading August 24th

Good Morning Ladies and Gentleman,

Futures are pointing upward after another minuet move by the Dow which finished positive 17.88 points at 18547.30. This last week or so the Dow has been like an elephant in a tutu. A little bit this way, a little bit that way, really just a series of very dainty moves. Probably just waiting for Jan to crack the whip. Last night I had a dream that Hilary married Donald and Madonna was their best man. It was nice to wake up to a steady Dow.

Gold got up and boogied for a moment but just as quickly sat back down and is lately at 1337.05. Oil dumped to 49.16 a barrel and the Aussie Dollar is holding steady at 76.15.

Within the base metals Zinc lead the charge with a rise of 1.07%. Lead managed 0.51% whilst Copper and Nickel were down 0.86% and 0.35%.

Yesterday saw a solid session for the Banks, major Healthcare stocks and Telstra. Good results and outlooks are being rewarded and a knife is been taken to anyone who disappoints. Monadelphous closed down almost $2 at $8.99 after posting their results, giving back a lot of their gains since the start of July. They are though still markedly higher since that time. Its still reasonably tough in the services sectors but some of these businesses are certainly finding their way through the worst of it and setting up nicely. Like Monadelphous many of them have posted good gains this year.

With no shining leads at the spec end of the market it'll be a case of keeping our eyes peeled. Much like the top end, at the moment its very savage on anything that disappoints so take care to cut your losses . Given the Dow is near all time highs I'd expect a bit more froth and bubble but as others on this thread have pointed out spec land is its own beast to a certain degree. Often its quite healthy when the main market is tanking. Dem's the breaks.

Good luck everybody.

RJ