Afternoon Trading 03/05/2018

Thanks @oscar, @Cleo, & all the morning contributors.
  
Australia: S&P/ASX 200 6,109.50 (+0.98%), ASX All Ordinaries 6,197.90 (+1.00%), S&P/ASX Emerging Companies 1,486.50 (+0.30%), AUD/USD 0.7518 (+0.0024 +0.32%)
Asia: Hang Seng 30,110.50 (-2.00%), Nikkei 225 (closed), Shanghai Composite 3,058.79 (-0.73%), KOSPI 2,500.11 (-0.22%), NZX 50 Index 8556.44 (+0.7%)
USA: S&P 500 2,635.67 (-0.72%), S&P 500 Futures recently sitting at 2,627.00 (-0.02%)
Brent Crude Futures 73.19 (-0.23%), Gold Futures 1,309.60  (+0.31%)


The ASX 200 once again putting in a strong performance, green all morning and rising 1%, which continues it's recent run upwards. Information Technology again leading the pack, up 2%.

Global sharemarkets stabilised in April, after two months of declines in February and March.  The month’s gain for US shares was modest, while Japan and the UK posted quite large gains over the month.  Australasian markets were also positive, with New Zealand and Australian sharemarkets up 1.5% and 3.5% respectively.

Here's an interesting story I almost missed from Monday, former Finance and Prime Minister of New Zealand Bill English has a new job, he's been appointed to the board of Wesfarmers.

Conflicting reports for why the US markets were down, take your pick of China-US trade tensions, the comments from the FED, or a little bit of both, or neither.

And thanks for the kind words, you all are an alright bunch .  Babysitting a couple little Fox Terriers today, that is one way to increase your trading level of difficulty. Do we get extra points for degree of difficulty?