Australian Stocks: What Happened Today?

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            [0] => ((OGC))
            [1] => ((MSB))
            [2] => ((PDN))
            [3] => ((DLS))
            [4] => ((LNC))
            [5] => ((GUD))
            [6] => ((PRU))
            [7] => ((SDL))
            [8] => ((AQG))
            [9] => ((SKE))
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            [1] => MSB
            [2] => PDN
            [3] => DLS
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            [5] => GUD
            [6] => PRU
            [7] => SDL
            [8] => AQG
            [9] => SKE
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)

ASX Top Gainers & Losers plus Market Snapshot – 31 October 2013

Ben Bernanke's speech did little to boost the confidence of risk-on stock investors in the US, as the mark took immediately to selling down the broader indices and heavy weights, albeit briefly, before closing the day down 0.39% on the DOW. Our S&P/ASX 200 didn't take kindly to the news on open, falling a dramatic 32 points before common sense prevailed and pushed the index back to yesterday's close to finish the day relatively flat, down 5.4 points on $4.3 billion of turnover.

Financials dragged down the rest of the market today, thanks largely to NAB reporting their profit and coming in a whisker above expectations and in the end the Financials Sector fell 0.75% and the Real Estate Investment Trusts fell 0.95%. On a more positive note we saw Information Technology stocks leading the way with the sector outperforming and rising 1.05% and Consumer Staples also doing well, rising 0.94%.

Looking over the charts

Volatility in a narrow trading band can be expected with the macro economic data that is coming out this week plus we have around 150 company AGM's in Australia, so uncertainty and hesitation can be expected. Markets closed the day on a doji star formation which confirms the indecision and with our oscillator continuing to show minor levels of bearish divergence, we'll have to continue monitoring these levels to see what transpires. Either markets are building up some energy in order to push higher or we'll see a shallow retracement, allowing those late to the party to get involved in the current run up.

ASX top 200 stock analysis

16% of stocks are showing oversold levels, 24.5% are showing overbought levels and 69% of stocks are currently above their long term moving average as of close of trading today.

S&P/ASX 200 Gainers and Losers

Oceanagold ((OGC)) had a brilliant gap up after a short consolidation, jumping 16.39% on 7 times the average volume, after it was noted that it is one of the world's lowest cost gold producers. Mesoblast ((MSB)) has been  in a consolidation for well over 6 months and today managed to break out above the period of uncertainty to climb an impressive 9.63% on above average volume.

Top 5 gainers:

OGC               OCEANAGOLD CORPORATION +16.39%
MSB               MESOBLAST +9.63%
((PDN))            PALADIN ENERGY +9.09%
((DLS))            DRILLSEARCH ENERGY +8.82%
((LNC))                LINC ENERGY +5.11%

GUD Holdings ((GUD)) has well and truly been underperforming for most of the last 12 months and today's 6.91% drop probably won't come as a great surprise to those long the stock as it announced a fall in sales and a softer outlook going forward. Persues Mining ((PRU)) needs a serious jolt to knock it out of the disastrous downtrend that see's it sitting on the equal lowest price since 2008 after today's 6.45% fall in value.

Top 5 Losers:

GUD              G.U.D. HOLDINGS -6.91%
PRU               PERSEUS MINING -6.45%
((SDL))           SUNDANCE RESOURCES -4.55%
((AQG))          ALACER GOLD CORP -4.13%
((SKE))          SKILLED GROUP -3.55%