Australian Stocks: What Happened Today?

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Gold continues to flounder below the $1,300 mark, Yellen calms investors’ nerves about a hike in the official interest rate and markets rebounded nicely from an early intraday sell off on the Aussie 200 index.

What are traders talking about today?

•    S&P/ASX200 lost 5.6 points or -0.10% on volume of $3.3 billion, closing at 5389.2.
•    The Fed Chair Janet Yellen spoke overnight, calming nerves about an imminent interest rate hike suggesting that was not on the cards right now.
•    The Aussie Dollar spiked briefly above the 93 cent mark but was unable to hold those new highs, as traders sold it down some 45 pips from that intraday high.
•    Gold has been unable to pick itself up from the recent lull in trading interest, with the market stabilising below the key $1,300 per ounce level, sitting around the $1,385 mark as I type this.
•    The GBP/USD has been a steady performer over the last seven trading sessions, bouncing off recent lows below the 1.65 mark, to approve the 1.67 level or nearly two full cents higher.
•    Copper prices have continued to slowly climb higher, touching above the $3 per pound read but have been unable to gather any momentum, so the next few trading sessions will be quite interesting.

Economic news

•    The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has made the consensus led decision to leave the interest rate on hold, providing Aussie’s with seven months of interest rate stability.
•    China's official Manufacturing PMI came in better than expected today at 50.3 versus analysts’ expectations at 50.1.
•    The Chicago PMI read came in from the United States early Tuesday morning a lot lower than expected, hitting 55.9 versus an expectation of 59.2.
•    RP data has released their March House Price figures, showing a handy jump to 2.3 per cent, highlighting the strongest monthly gain in some 18 year.
•    The Australian Manufacturing PMI contracted in March for the 5th month in a row, as reported by the Australian Industry Group, with many pointing to a resurgent Aussie Dollar leading to the decline.
•    The HSBC PMI read has fallen to an eight month low, coming in at 48.0 versus an expectation among analysts of 48.5, suggesting further contraction in this sector.

Australian sector watch

Looking over the charts

– Plenty of volatility for intraday traders on the Aussie 200 index today with an initial 50 point drop on the open, following by a 35 point rally within the next hour as many of the leading miners rallied substantially in the last couple of hours, with BHP Billiton (BHP:ASX) rallying $1.14 off the intraday low.
– The index continues to hover around the 5385-5400 level, which has served as both resistance and support, with the most recent being resistance as our market continues to struggle to break through this psychological barrier.
– The short term challenge now is that the market is potentially gearing up for a lower high with the market showing signs of being overbought, with a raft of the top 50 stocks also hitting potentially lower highs.
– As we view the market right now it is providing more opportunity for short term intraday traders with medium to long term traders unable to find any clear direction.

ASX top 200 stock analysis

23% of stocks are showing oversold levels, 25% are showing overbought levels and 51% 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:

AGI        AINSWORTH GAME TECHNOLOGY +5.22%
AQA       AQUILA RESOURCES +3.85%
ORA       ORORA +3.27%
AWC      ALUMINA +2.93%
SRX        SIRTEX MEDICAL +2.45%

Top 5 Losers:

SXL         SOUTHERN CROSS MEDIA GROUP -7.30%
TEN        TEN NETWORK HOLDINGS -7.27%
NST        NORTHERN STAR RESOURCES -6.19%
RSG        RESOLUTE MINING -5.88%
BDR        BEADELL RESOURCES -5.79%