Afternoon trading January 17

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    Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


    Half-time round-up:

    Local shares notched a two-month high before fading to break-even mid-session as US equity futures surrendered gains. 

    The ASX 200 briefly rallied 21 points to 5856 as investors took their cues from well-received quarterly earnings in the US that dampened fears about the impact of a trade war with China. But the index here lost altitude as the morning wore on and was lately ahead just one point or less than 0.1% at 5836. Overnight, the S&P 500 edged up 0.22% and the Dow 0.59%.


    A mixed market saw advances in metals & mining +0.5%, gold +0.4% and financials +0.2% cancelled out by declines in utilities -1.3%, consumer discretionary -0.7% and health -0.6%. The index hit a two-year low on Christmas Eve but has rallied in three of the four subsequent weeks to regain mid-November levels.


    US futures improved after Theresa May's UK government survived a no-confidence vote but lately turned negative with Asian markets. S&P 500 futures were off 0.25 points or -0.02%. China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.32%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.65% andJapan's Nikkei 0.26%.

    Crude oil futures faded 27 cents or 0.5% this morning to US$52.04 a barrel. Gold futures added $1 or 0.1%to US$1,294.10 an ounce. The dollar was buying 71.6 US cents.

     

     

    Trading: a morning of disappointingly low achievements. Been a subsistence week, just bumping along, pulling a few hundred here and there. Not exactly Big Game Hunting. Volume isn't there. EXL threatening to come good from yesterday but today offered a better entry. Small dab at the retrace in ATU. Watching VEC and WSI. Set loads of buy orders, but the market would not budge.

 
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