Afternoon trading April 11

Thanks Oscar and morning crew.


Half-time round-up:

Shares drifted off a two-week high as investors dumped defensive assets as fears of a global trade war abated.

The ASX 200 eased 20 points or 0.3% to 5837 after yesterday preempting a strong night on Wall Street as Chinese President Xi Jinping used a speech to defuse tensions over trade with the US. The S&P 500 roared 1.67% higher in a move well telegraphed by US futures during the Australian session.

"Seeing is believing of course... but for now the market chooses to believe that Xi's words will prove to be more than mere platitudes in coming months," Ray Attrill, head of foreign exchange strategy at NAB, told CNBC.

Australian resource stocks rallied this morning on expectation that Chinese demand will remain robust. The metals & mining sector put on 1.3%, materials 0.9% and energy 0.7%. Those gains were outweighed by downturns in utilities -1.6%, telecoms -1.2% and consumer staples -1%.

Asian markets were mixed after yesterday preempting much of the overnight action in the US. China's Shanghai Composite added 0.67% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.54%, while Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.2%. Dampening sentiment was a fade in US futures. S&P 500 futures were recently off 12 points or 0.45%.

Crude oil futures gave back 12 cents or 0.18% this morning to US$65.39 a barrel. Gold futures shed $2.30 or 0.17% to US$1,343.60 an ounce. The dollar was buying 77.49 US cents.



US futures look bearish - can't see anything obvious on the wires to explain it. May just be the counter-reaction to last night's upswing. This swinging market can't string together more than a couple of moves in either direction before correcting. Trading: one of those mornings when you make a good wage but leave too much on the table. Traded KRC three times but made a fraction of what was on offer. Got a pip from AOA when two were available. More recently took VRC.