Australian Stocks: What Happened Today?

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
        )

)

MtGox Bitcoin exchange goes down, Copper and Iron Ore prices continue to weaken and the Aussie Market is unable to push through immediate resistance for the fourth straight day.

What are traders talking about today?

•    S&P/ASX200 gained 3.2 points or +0.06% on volume of $2.8 billion, closing at 5437.
•    MtGox, the Tokyo based bitcoin exchange, went down on Tuesday with reports suggesting several hundred million dollars has been lost.
•    Gold continues to show strong signs of pushing higher, touching on $1,343 per ounce as of writing (Wed 5pm Sydney time).
•    Iron Ore and Copper prices continue to weaken, which does not bode well for many of the leading blue chip resource stocks in Australian with Wednesday’s biggest losers highlighting that fact.
•    Natural Gas futures down another 8.17% in overnight trading, closing at $5.00 and giving back significant gains achieved in recent trading.
•    Northern China is suffering from excessive smog at levels 9 times what is normally considered safe for humans.
•    Aussie Dollar showed resilience on Wednesday trading after hitting intraday lows of 0.8968, then pushing above the 0.9015 mark.
Economic news
•    The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released their value of construction work done for the December quarter showing a one per cent fall for the period but maintaining a 0.2 per cent rise for the year.
•    Unfortunately for those unemployed in Australia, the ABS has released some data to show those unemployed are waiting longer to find work.
•    Great Britain will release their revised quarterly and yearly GDP numbers later on Wednesday evening.

Looking over the charts

•    Plenty of indecision over the last 3 days with no traction to the upside. There seems to be some lingering doubt as to whether or not value can be found out there among the blue chip shares.
•    Technically we’ve failed to break above resistance for four straight days, which doesn’t bode well for the bullish view, but having said that, the bears are certainly not winning the battle either.
•    A close above 5450 – 5465 is essential before we see some further momentum to the upside, so we’ll monitor this over the next couple of days.
•    In previous daily commentary we’ve noted that we’ve had quite an explosive couple of weeks over a short period of time and often ‘time’ needs to catch up, so consolidation at these levels isn’t unexpected.

ASX top 200 stock analysis

12% of stocks are showing oversold levels, 38% are showing overbought levels and 65% of stocks are currently above their long term moving average as of close of trading today. View the image below to better understand overbought and oversold levels.

S&P/ASX 200 Gainers and Losers

Top 5 gainers:
•    PDN    PALADIN ENERGY +21.35%
•    WOR    WORLEYPARSONS +10.59%
•    ASL    AUSDRILL +9.23%
•    TSE    TRANSFIELD SERVICES +7.22%
•    CAB    CABCHARGE AUSTRALIA +5.15%
Top 5 Losers:
•    VRT    VIRTUS HEALTH -8.40%
•    RRL    REGIS RESOURCES -6.93%
•    BCI    BC IRON -5.73%
•    AGO    ATLAS IRON -5.19%
•    MTU    M2 GROUP -4.41%