Australian Stocks: What Happened Today?

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => ((TPM))
            [1] => ((WHC))
            [2] => ((IGO))
            [3] => ((SIP))
            [4] => ((MTS))
            [5] => ((QBE))
            [6] => ((FGE))
            [7] => ((SBM))
            [8] => ((FXJ))
            [9] => ((SIR))
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => TPM
            [1] => WHC
            [2] => IGO
            [3] => SIP
            [4] => MTS
            [5] => QBE
            [6] => FGE
            [7] => SBM
            [8] => FXJ
            [9] => SIR
        )

)

List StockArray ( [0] => WHC [1] => IGO [2] => MTS [3] => QBE [4] => SBM )

By Ashley Jessen

ASX Top Gainers & Losers plus Market Snapshot – 09 December 2013

Despite incredibly upbeat international markets, positive news out of China and precious metals rising, the S&P/ASX200 was unable to counteract the 22% dip from QBE Insurance and the financial sector losing ground quickly. By the close of session the S&P/ASX200 was down 41.6 points or 0.80% with volumes hitting $4.2 billion.

US Unemployment figures came out better than expected, hitting 203,000 from an expectation of 180,000. All eyes will be watching the Aussie unemployment read coming out on Wednesday and we’ll keep a close eye on what the Fed has to say about potential tapering or hints of when they might taper heading into the close of 2013.

Financials saw quite a bit of blood-letting today with the Real Estate Investment Trust sector and the Financials sector hit the hardest, with both down 1.65% and 1.44% respectively. On a positive note there were two sectors that managed to fight the negative trend with Telecommunication Services rising 0.84% and Information Technology up 0.29%.

Looking over the charts

We have certainly moved into more critical support off the back of today’s fall and certainly this has been compounded by the fact that overseas markets were overly positive, yet our market was pulled down immediately by both QBE and the financial sector in general. Support around the 5130-5150 is now quite important and looks as though it will be tested over the next couple of days. If we fail to see any further negative sentiment news coming out, then it isn’t without reason to suggest that these levels are certainly worth considering from a bullish risk reward perspective.

ASX top 200 stock analysis

68% of stocks are showing oversold levels, 4% are showing overbought levels and 30% of stocks are currently above their long term moving average as of close of trading today. Not since June and July this year have we seen the number of stocks above their long term moving average hitting below 30 and the rally off the back of that was quite significant. Smart traders should be eyeing off these levels for potentially solid risk reward trades with solid upside potential.

S&P/ASX 200 Gainers and Losers

TPG Telecom ((TPM)) completely rebounded from four straight weeks of mediocre trading with a 13.59% surge accompanied by 6 times the average trading volume after it announced the $450 million purchase of AAPT, and is now well positioned to push forward into new blue sky territory. Whitehaven Coal ((WHC)) has been on a genuinely solid upward trending journey over the last 3 weeks with today’s 5.90% rally taking the recent three week gain to 33% on steadily rising volume.

Top 5 gainers:

TPM           TPG TELECOM   13.59%
WHC          WHITEHAVEN COAL        5.90%
((IGO))        INDEPENDENCE GROUP NL         4.47%
((SIP))         SIGMA PHARMACEUTICALS        4.35%
((MTS))       METCASH            4.30%

QBE Insurance ((QBE)) well and truly hit headlines today and unfortunately they were all for the wrong reasons as the shares fell a massive 22.33% after announcing a profit downgrade and flagging a $250 million loss. Forge Group ((FGE)) is seemingly unable, at least in the short term, to break any higher and is testing the immediate support, with today’s 8.47% drop putting it precariously close to a large loss.

Top 5 Losers:

QBE                QBE INSURANCE GROUP              -22.33%
FGE                FORGE GROUP  -8.47%
((SBM))            ST BARBARA       -7.27%
((FXJ))              FAIRFAX MEDIA                -4.41%
((SIR))              SIRIUS RESOURCES NL   -4.37%

 

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