Afternoon thoughts from the Trading Room – 3.30pm
Across Asia, regional markets are all firmer after Wall Street managed to pare large early losses to finish flat to marginally lower.
The Hang Seng is the region’s best performer, higher by 0.9%, while the Kospi is seeing a gain of 0.8%. Elsewhere, the Shanghai Composite and the Nikkei 225 are firmer by 0.4% and 0.3% respectively.
In Australia, the ASX 200 is currently 0.3% higher at 4284, just off its earlier session high of 4287. Despite Wall Street’s slightly lower finish, the local market is seeing broad-based gains with the telecoms, consumer discretionary and consumer staples sectors the biggest percentage gainers. A strong first-half sales update from supermarket heavyweight Woolworths, featuring a decision to scale back its Dick Smith consumer electronics business, has buoyed other names in the sector such as Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi. Elsewhere, the market-leading materials sector is seeing modest gains despite commodity prices easing overnight.
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Chris Weston, Market Analyst, is the face of our video market updates and presents live from our trading floor daily. His expert commentary can also be seen regularly on Sky News Business Channel, plus Bloomberg, ABC2 and the Australia Network’s Business Today program.
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