Afternoon trading August 22

Thanks @Endless, @Fiji1 and morning crew.

Half-time wrap:

The share market overcame early pressure from a mixed bag of corporate earnings to reach mid-session modestly ahead.

Strong gains for tech leaders Altium and Megaport helped the ASX 200 reverse an opening 25.5-point loss. At the halfway mark, the index was ahead eight points or 0.12%.

The tech sector surged 5.5% following trading updates from Altium (+27%) and Megaport (+19.9%). Also well-received were earnings from HUB24, Scentre Group and Ingenia. Those results helped offset duds from Coles, BHP, Nanosonics and ARB Corporation.

Overnight, Wall Street closed mixed as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq broke losing streaks, while the Dow finished modestly lower.

Personal trading: Solid morning. Caught OXT near the low, but let it go far too soon. Caught some of the recovery in BDM. Squeezed a pip out of QPM to pay for a case of wine.