Australian Stocks: What Happened Today?

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By Ashley Jessen

ASX Top Gainers & Losers plus Market Snapshot – 07 November 2013

European bourses up, the Dow Jones hitting all time record highs and a bounce in commodities would almost lead any reasonable trader to expect a push higher on the local index but with many of our blue chip stocks going ex-dividend, we found the S&P/ASX 200 unwinding potential gains and posting a 11.8 point drop or 0.22% on higher than average volume of $5.3 billion.

Unemployment data was the big release out today and as expected, the rate hit 5.7%, which was in line with expectations. A couple of interesting points to note in that part time jobs were up around 29,000 and full time jobs came back by 28,000 leaving approximately 1100 new jobs being created. These figures are more a sign of the season as with the holiday’s and Christmas nearly upon us, many retailers and work places aren’t committing to full time work but instead opting for part time workers.

A fairly even spread of winners and losers across the ASX sectors today with Health Care the shining light, rising a healthy 0.99% with Consumer Discretionary fast approaching a new high, rising 0.76%. Real Estate Investment Trusts pulled back from near recent highs to drop 0.82% whilst the Financial sector fell 0.65% with many of the bank’s going ex-dividend.

Looking over the charts

We are at an interesting juncture at the moment with nearly every sector ready to break out into new territory and when you combine that with many leading blue chip stocks, in particular the banks, hitting new recent highs, it seems inevitable we are going to experience a strong breakout to the upside. Indicators are showing small signs of bearish divergence but with our market not making new recent highs, we can only sit and wait to see what happens outside of this recent range bound trading zone.

ASX top 200 stock analysis

30% of stocks are showing oversold levels, 16% are showing overbought levels and 62% of stocks are currently above their long term moving average as of close of trading today. As expected, many of the oversold stocks moved back into neutral territory and surprisingly, we still have a relatively low number of stocks indicating overbought. If markets breakout there will be a swing to a much higher number moving into the overbought region.

S&P/ASX 200 Gainers and Losers

Mesoblast had a strong outside day or a bullish engulfing pattern, hitting a 2^nd consecutive higher low, rising 4.61% on steady volume. JB Hi-Fi has been one of the stand out performers this year, rising 123% since February and breaking out strongly today with a 3.63% gain in price and above average volume.

Top 5 gainers:

• ((MSB)) MESOBLAST +4.61%
• ((JBH)) JB HI-FI +3.63%
• ((RHC)) RAMSAY HEALTH CARE +3.17%
• ((HVN)) HARVEY NORMAN HOLDINGS +2.78%
• ((PMV)) PREMIER INVESTMENTS +2.69%

Ausdrill shares took a significant fall today after the company announced their full year profit would fall heavily as the mining industry’s demands quietened. Ausdrill shares dropped a massive 28.73% with 30.34 million shares changing hands and is now fast approaching key support levels around $0.80. St Barbara has officially crossed into the danger zone, dropping below critical support just under $0.40 with today’s 15.66% fall on 5 times the average volume placing the shares at the lowest price since 2005.

Top 5 Losers:

• ((ASL)) AUSDRILL -28.73%
• ((SBM)) ST BARBARA -15.66%
• ((NWH)) NRW HOLDINGS -6.25%
• ((OGC)) OCEANAGOLD CORPORATION -5.71%
• ((BLY)) BOART LONGYEAR -5.00%

 

Reprinted with permission of the publisher. Content included in this article is not by association the view of FNArena (see our disclaimer).