DT April 3 afternoon

Thanks Oscar and morning crew. Good to have Jim back.


Half-time round-up:

Shares struggled for traction during the first trading session of a new quarter as heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula and weak retail data capped risk appetite.

At 1pm EST the ASX 200 was eight points or 0.1% weaker at 5857 as gains in gold stocks +1.2%, health +0.1% and telecoms +0.1% were outweighed by declines in IT -0.9%, energy -0.6% and utilities -0.4%.

The consumer discretionary sector eased 0.25% and consumer staples 0.4% after data showed February retail sales fell 0.1% from January, well short of the 0.3% improvement tipped by economists. Other data was more market-friendly: building approvals jumped 8.3% and job ads 0.3%. The dollar dipped a fifth of a cent to 76.16 US cents.

Asian markets appeared unperturbed by weekend comments by President Trump that the US is willing to tackle North Korea alone if China does not pressure its ally on nuclear weapons.

"If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you," Mr Trump told the Financial Times.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.48% and Japan's Nikkei 0.36%. China's Shanghai Composite was shuttered for a public holiday. Dow futures rose eight points or 0.04%.

Crude oil futures eased five cents or 0.1% this morning to US$50.55 a barrel. Gold futures shed $1 or 0.08% to US$1,250.20 an ounce.


Lacklustre session at the big end, but promising further down. Cannabis is still good for a share price revaluation (BDA), while CEL and ARE demonstrated the right news can still move the market. Trading: scraped wins from BLK and WLD.