Afternoon trading April 22

Thanks @shovel40, @Fiji1, @uncleBuck and morning crew.

Looks like Australia is benefitting from some of the enormous wave of cash desperately seeking sanctuary outside the US. The ASX has outperformed Wall Street by some distance over the last two sessions. Gimme shelter.


Half-time wrap:

Australian stocks largely overcame early weakness after trade war tensions and a White House attack on the Federal Reserve fuelled heavy overnight selling on Wall Street.

The ASX 200 shed as much as 74 points in early action before slashing its loss to two points or 0.02% mid-session.

CBA, Macquarie, BHP and Coles led the recovery, offsetting down-pressure from energy producers, tech companies and healthcare providers. Gold miners were another standout after risk-off sentiment lifted the yellow metal above US$3,400 an ounce.

In the US, stocks, bonds and the dollar all fell after President Donald Trump branded Fed Chair Powell a "loser", raising questions about the independence of the central bank under the current administration. Trump's comments added to market weakness after Beijing pushed back against US attempts to isolate China by tying tariff relief to reducing trade with China. The S&P 500 slumped 2.36%.


Personal trading: Couple of pips from ASM, half a pip from LM1. In and out of VMM for not much, if anything. MEI looked like it might give something, but didn't.