Afternoon trading April 5

Welcome back, Oscar.


Half-time round-up:

The ASX extended yesterday's recovery from five-month lows following a 700-point reversal on the Dow overnight.

The ASX 200 rallied 41 points or 0.7% to 5802 amid hopes that last night's huge reversal set the scene for further gains on Wall Street tonight. The Dow crashed 510 points at the open overnight after China announced a range of retaliatory tariffs on American goods, but recovered strongly to close with a gain of 231 points or 0.96%. The S&P 500 put on 1.16%. S&P 500 futures were recently ahead 11.5 points or 0.43%.

The reversal came as analysts speculated that negotiations will dilute much of the impact on the global economy of tit-for-tat tariffs announced in the US and China.

"Our base case... remains that negotiation and de-escalation will be the likely endgame," Morgan Stanley analysts told CNBCin a note. "Having said that, China's proportionate response has increased the risks of further escalation in 'rhetoric' in the coming weeks."

Here, falls in the metals & mining sector -0.4% and telecoms -0.2% were outweighed by rallies in financials +1.1%, energy +1% and consumer staples +1.1%.

Key Asian markets, including China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, were closed today for a public holiday. Japan's Nikkei jumped 1.63%.

Crude oil futures added 27 cents or 0.43% this morning to US$63.64 a barrel. Gold futures eased $6.20 or 0.46% to US$1,334 an ounce. The dollar was buying 77.08 US cents.



BMZ: what a difference a day makes. Big liquidity event for existing holders, but the price is holding well so far. New addition to the watchlist. Trading: squeezed a couple of pips out of the temporary recovery in VRC. Still holding another tiddler, but the trading is too thin to warrant a mention here.