Australian stock market treads water

The local share market dropped 30 points at the open and jockeyed around within the same 30 point range, seemingly unable to accomplish anything. Traders globally are well and truly focused on any leaks about the pending US Federal Reserve's announcement coming out on Thursday morning Sydney time. It wouldn’t be unexpected for our market to cut back on the volatility and range trade between now and then. By the close of the session the S&P/ASX200 fell 8.8 points or 0.17% on volume of $3.4 billion.

An evenly mixed day of gainers and losers among the leading sectors in our market with the Utilities and Consumer Discretionary sectors leading the way, up 0.88% and 0.87% respectively. Unfortunately both the Energy and Financial sectors were unable to claw their way out of negative territory with Energy down 0.63% and the Financials losing 0.54%.

Looking over the charts

Halting the immediate fall seems to be the leading priority among market participants at the moment and today was one of those days of hanging in there. Markets are still showing oversold conditions but more importantly holding on to the critical range of 5050-5100 as the first line of defence for further falls. If the market can close solidly above the 5100 mark then we can hold hope for some more positive opportunities in the short term.