Afternoon trading April 8

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

Half-time wrap:

Aussie shares rose after a partial recovery on Wall Street encouraged investors here to dip their toes at 15-month lows.

The ASX 200 rallied 109 points or 1.48% by mid-session, reversing a fraction of the Australian stock benchmark's 7.5% loss across the prior three sessions.

Tech and energy stocks spearheaded a rebound that lifted all sectors. Santos, Fortescue Metals and Macquarie Group were amongst the pick of the heavyweights, all gaining at least 2.2%.

The market briefly trimmed its advance after China warned it will retaliate if the White House follows through on a threat to hit Chinese imports with an additional 50% tariff in response to Beijing's decision to impose a 34% tariff on US imports after last week's US tariff hikes. China's Commerce Ministry said it objected to the "blackmail nature" of the US approach and would "follow it to the end".

The morning's economic data bolstered the case for interest rate cuts. Consumer confidence withered 6% this month to a six-month low as the tariff war and sliding share prices took a toll. Business confidence deteriorated to -3 last month from a reading of -2 in February.

US stocks closed mixed but substantially above their lows overnight as buyers returned after two days of relentless selling. The Nasdaq posted a 0.1% gain. The S&P 500 closed just 0.23% in the red after falling as much as 4.7% in early trade.


Personal trading: Found yesterday's market easier to trade than this one. Only decent idea was to buy weakness in TCL for a swing trade because it hasn't closed below its opening price in two weeks - classic defensive asset. Also took RDN for a centrepoint scalp. Other than that, none of my lowball bids got a bite.