Afternoon trading March 25

Thanks @shovel40, @Fiji1 and morning crew.

Half-time wrap:

Aussie shares pushed back towards record levels, boosted by takeover action and strong gains in the heavily-weighted banks and miners.

The ASX 200 rallied 42 points or 0.53% by mid-session. At this morning's peak, the index drew within three points of its all-time closing high of 7847 on March 8.

A broad rally lifted all 11 sectors. Stand-outs included West African Resources +6.19%, Elders +5.18% and Fortescue Metals +3%. Real estate agent McGrath and maritime services firm MMA Offshore jumped on takeover offers.

Wall Street took a breather on Friday following back-to-back record closes for the three major benchmarks during their best week so far this year. The S&P 500 reversed 0.14%. The Dow shed 0.77%, while the Nasdaq edged up 0.16% to a fresh high.


Personal trading: Scrappy morning. Couple of centrepoint trades in ADX, one in KAI. Part-fill in STK for a couple of pips. Half-pip from GAL. Not a lot of of fat in any of those.