Thanks @shovel40, @Fiji1 and morning crew.
Half-time wrap:
The share market rallied to its highest in almost two weeks as a challenging month for investors neared its final days.
The ASX 200 gained 30 points or 0.42% by mid-session. Gains in miners, consumer stocks and and utilities helped offset weakness in tech and healthcare.
Today's rally trimmed the index's loss for August to below 3%. The market has struggled this month in the face of headwinds including an uneven domestics full-year earnings season, US rates worries and a decelerating Chinese economy.
Wall Street has also been in retreat. The S&P 500 is on track for its worst monthly return since December. Overnight, the broadest of the three major indices bounced 0.63% to cut its loss for August to 3.4%.Personal trading: A cautious morning after yesterday's wipe-out. Caught a couple of pips from ACM off the low, but only a small position. Been noticing that bot action seems to be getting worse at the spec end after a few years of relative ease. Several times this morning I placed a buy order only to have some sort of automated program immediately place a higher bid. Another headwind for traders.
