Good morning traders, and happy April fools? The day everyone needs to qualify every surprising piece of news as either a fools joke or not. Thanks @ttward, @Ravgnome & the aftermarket loungers. Q1 done and dusted, almost the best quarter for the ASX in a decade, not bad indeed. Would be nice if more of those gains had found their way to the speccy end of the market of course.

Some housekeeping first up, need a hearty brave soul to open the Pre-open thread for the rest of this week (or more than one person). Only real skill required is knowing what the date is, and opening the thread before a riot starts. I’m sure everyone won’t mind a break from my long-winded posts. And no... this isn’t an April Fools joke.

ASX Market Report

Australian shares have sunk in late trading to finish nearly flat for the day.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index lost 33 points in the final 93 minutes of trade to finish up just 4.6 points, or 0.07 per cent, to 6,180.7 points at 1615 AEDT on Friday. The broader All Ordinaries closed up 5.2 points, or 0.08 per cent, at 6,261.7.

"It's been a bit of a risk-on day," IG Australia market analyst Kyle Rodda told AAP late in the afternoon. He said the rally had apparently been sparked by positive comments from US officials in China for trade talks that reaffirming there was a desire to resolve the dispute.

Despite the late sell-off there was some good news: the ASX200 concluded the first quarter of the year up 9.46 per cent, its best quarterly performance since the third quarter of 2009.

Tech stocks were the best performers, collectively up 0.71 per cent, with Afterpay Touch up 2.6 per cent to $20.95 and Livetiles up 4.21 per cent to $49.50.

Utilities closed down 0.8 per cent, with APA Group down 0.89 per cent to $9.98 and AGL Energy down 0.87 per cent to $21.77.

Mining titan BHP gained 0.65 per cent to $38.49, Rio Tinto was up 1.56 per cent to $97.91 and Fortescue Metals was up 3.04 per cent to $7.11.

Most consumer discretionary stocks did well: Harvey Norman gained 3.61 per cent to $4.02, Super Retail Group closed up 5.66 per cent to $8.03 and JB Hi-Fi was up 2.38 per cent to $24.95.

Among the big four banks, NAB was up 0.64 per cent to $25.27, ANZ was up 0.04 per cent to $26.03, Westpac was down 0.12 per cent to $25.92 and the Commonwealth was down 0.38 per cent to $70.64.

CSL gained 0.69 per cent to $194.94 and Telstra was up 0.30 per cent to $3.32.

Wesfarmers was down 0.77 per cent to $34.65, and the Perth conglomerate showed no signs of giving up its quest to acquire Lynas Corporation, despite being initially rebuffed by the lithium miner.

In an emailed statement, managing director Rob Scott told AAP that Wesfarmers remained keen to work collaboratively with Lynas and to hear the company's solution to the regulatory issues in Malaysia that had weighed on the company for many years.

The Aussie dollar is buying 70.97 US cents, from 71.00 US cents on Thursday.

ON THE ASX:

* The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 4.6 points, or 0.07 per cent, to 6,180.7 points at 1630 AEDT on Friday.

* The All Ordinaries was up 5.2 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 6,261.7.

* At 1630 AEDT, the SPI200 futures index was down five points, or 0.08 per cent, to 6,166.

CURRENCY SNAPSHOT AT 1630 AEDT:

One Australian dollar buys:

* 70.97 US cents, from 71.00 US on Thursday

* 78.57 Japanese yen, from 78.19

* 63.19 euro cents, from 63.07

* 54.30 British pence, from 53.78

* 104.39 NZ cents, from 104.07

Something extra by William McInnes via Canberra Times

Australian yield curve

The Australian yield curve has followed the lead of its US counterpart, inverting between the three‑month bill and the 10‑year bond yield for the first time since July 2016. "While such a yield curve inversion has in the past consistently signalled a US recession, this is not the case for the Australian yield curve and Australian recessions," CBA chief currency strategist Richard Grace said. "The Australian yield curve inversion has also occurred much more frequently than the US yield curve inversion. However, the Australian yield curve inversion has in the past signalled RBA rate cuts in six out of the last seven yield curve inversions. The one exception was during the 2003‑08 mining investment boom."

Palladium

The price of palladium slid dramatically on Thursday, its third loss in as many days and its biggest loss in almost nine years. The price of the precious metal slid 7.3 per cent to $US1346.96 an ounce. The commodity hit a record high only last week, but its slump on Thursday now puts it back to its weakest level since January 29. “I think that the bubble has burst,” ABN Amro Bank NV senior FX and precious metals analyst Georgette Boele told Bloomberg. “Palladium is finally feeling some gravity.” Palladium is mainly used in the production of catalytic converters for automobiles.

Aussie dollar

The Australian dollar lifted slightly on Friday after falling away from a strong start to the week's trading on Wednesday and Thursday. Investors will likely remain cautious heading into next week, with a raft of economic data set to be released. Two other big events on the local calendar for Tuesday are the federal budget and the Reserve Bank's policy meeting. "We expect no change to RBA policy as the labour market remains strong," ANZ economist Rahul Khare said. "The tone will likely remain cautious, however, owing to risks associated with housing, credit conditions and labour market expectations. Risks remain balanced as strong unemployment data have been offset by the weaker fourth-quarter GDP and soft leading indicators."

Vale cuts guidance

Vale updated the market on the impact of multiple production issues at its mines in Brazil, saying the impact on the market would only just start to be felt in the market. The miner's production guidance suggested that 50 metric tons to 75 metric tons, or 3.1 per cent to 4.7 per cent, of output had been lost due to its outages. "The impact of the production loss into shipments lost at Vale will start to be felt now because of the time it takes for the ships to arrive in Asia," the Brazilian miner said. "So far the price increases have been driven by expectations. Now the physical consequences will start to reach the market."

5 Things to Watch

(Via Reuters)

1/ YIELD CURVEBALLS

Which is it - growth or gloom? With 10-year U.S. bond yields below 3-month T-bill rates for the first time in more than a decade, recession fears are swirling. After all, an inverted yield curve, when longer-dated yields drop below shorter maturities, have proved to be fairly reliable predictors of U.S. recessions in the past. As a result some investors are busy putting cash behind bets the Fed is gearing up for rate cuts.

But there are many who scoff - they point to a world economy chugging along at a decent clip, dovish central banks and company earnings that are still growing, albeit more slowly. So while Treasury yields are down 30 basis points this quarter, world stocks are up more than 10 percent. Recession skeptics may also note that U.S. equities are not far off record highs and credit spreads have retraced most of their December losses.

Also, while past recession discussions have focused on inversions of the 2-year/10-year U.S. curve, that hasn’t reacted so far. Fed policymakers too, such as voting member John Williams, say they are not worried about recession this year or the next. Others such as James Bullard seem to be endorsing the “this time is different” argument, hinting that the curve’s predictive power has weakened.

But policymakers around the world have already taken heed. The ECB has hinted at further rate cut delays and at tiering interest rates to help banks; other central banks, from New Zealand to Canada, are hinting at rate cuts ahead.

2/THE END OF THE ROAD?

No. No. No. No. Parliament’s cold response to Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal so far means the manner of Britain’s exit from the European Union - originally scheduled for March 29 - is unknown.

Brussels has let Britain delay its departure while May battled to find a way forward but there is little enthusiasm in parliament or the population even for the stripped-down version of May’s twice-defeated deal. But lawmakers have also given the thumbs-down to a series of other amendments, including revoking Brexit, delaying it further or holding another referendum.

3/WORKIN’ FOR A LIVIN’

U.S. factory job growth was its weakest in February since the summer of 2017 but still managed to extend the streak of monthly gains to 19, the longest in nearly a quarter century. If, as expected, Friday’s March payrolls report makes it 20 in a row – economists polled by Reuters predict a 10,000 increase - it would mark the longest uninterrupted run of manufacturing employment expansion in a generation, matching the run from January 1983 through August 1984.

But while comparable in length, the current manufacturing renaissance pales in terms of total jobs created. Back then, U.S. factories added 1.34 million workers, more than three times the 417,000 new jobs since the current streak began in August 2017.

4/DEAL WITH IT

A month has passed since the United States and China missed an initial deadline to agree a trade deal. The first face-to-face meetings between the two sides since that deadline were apparently “constructive” and “productive”; now Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is to travel to Washington for further talks.

In the meantime though, tariffs on Chinese goods worth $250 billion are in play and that is hurting - China as well as its Asian neighbors who are linked to it through complex supply chains. March Purchasing Managers Indexes are expected to show a further deterioration in sentiment across the region and another source of pressure is the worry of a recession in the United States.

5/NO THANKSGIVING FOR THIS TURKEY

Last year’s lira crisis tipped Turkey into a painful recession, ended its credit-fueled economic boom and complicated President Tayyip Erdogan’s task of selling his economic success story to voters. They are headed to the ballot box on Sunday for the first time since last year’s currency meltdown.

Polls suggest Erdogan could lose Ankara, the city from which he has ruled Turkey with an increasingly iron grip since 2003. His AK Party could face a tough race in Istanbul, where Erdogan was once mayor. But policymakers’ efforts shore up the currency before the election have run into trouble and moves to curb offshore lira supply has pushed investors into selling Turkish stocks and bonds.

Economic Data April 1-7

In Asia

Asian shares rose on Friday, led by a surge in Chinese equities, on hopes that Washington and Beijing are making progress in trade talks, while global bond yields moved higher after a prolonged slide on worries about the economic outlook.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.75 percent while Japan’s Nikkei added 0.8 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index climbed more than 3.1 percent.

The mood in the markets was brighter after U.S. officials said China has made proposals in trade talks with the United States on a range of issues that go further than it has before, including on forced technology transfer.

Read more

In Europe

European shares rose on Friday and headed for their best quarterly performance in four years, helped by encouraging signals from U.S.-China trade talks and a surge for the world’s second-biggest apparel retailer, H&M.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index gained 0.3 percent by 1010 GMT. All major European indexes rose, with France’s CAC outperforming with a 0.5 percent gain and Germany’s trade-sensitive DAX was up 0.3 percent.

Swedish-based H&M was among the shares gaining the most, rising 12.2 percent. The retailer reported its first-quarter pre-tax profit fell less than expected as it sold more products at full price and improved its margins.

H&M shares helped push up the retail index , which has risen nearly 20 percent this quarter.

The European labor market is robust, and the gains in personal income are boosting retail sales, said Bert Colijn an economist at ING.

Britain’s exporter-heavy FTSE 100 was up 0.4 percent and Dublin’s ISEQ, which typically moves on Brexit- related news, gained 0.1 percent.

Britain’s parliament will hold a special sitting on Friday to discuss and vote on Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed agreement for withdrawing from the European Union.

Goldman Sachs said if May’s agreement was rejected, chances would increase for a long extension and a Brexit renegotiation based on new, softer, options. The likelihood of a snap election would also increase, it said.

“A rejection would bring us in unchartered territory again, as the pressure will be high to get the deal through the British Parliament before 12 April and an extension beyond this date becomes uncertain,” Alexandra Dumitru, an economist at Rabobank, wrote in a note.

Read more

In the United States

U.S. stocks ended the final trading day of the first quarter on a strong note on Friday and the S&P 500 posted its best quarterly gain since 2009, boosted by optimism over the latest round of trade talks between the United States and China.

The two sides said they made progress in trade talks that concluded on Friday in Beijing. The talks, aimed at resolving a nearly nine-month trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies, were called “candid and constructive” by Washington. A Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He will head to Washington next week for another round of talks. “The prospect of the trade war ending in the very near term is giving a boost to investor confidence, and in turn, we’re closing the quarter with some pretty good gains,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

The benchmark S&P 500 rose 13.1 percent in the quarter, its biggest quarterly gain since the third quarter of 2009 and its best first quarter since 1998.

Trade-sensitive industrials rose 1 percent, while chipmakers, which have a large revenue exposure to China, also gained, with the Philadelphia chip index up 1.6 percent. The broader technology sector gained 1 percent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 211.22 points, or 0.82 percent, to 25,928.68, the S&P 500 gained 18.96 points, or 0.67 percent, to 2,834.4 and the Nasdaq Composite added 60.16 points, or 0.78 percent, to 7,729.32.

For the quarter, the Dow gained 11.2 percent, its biggest quarterly rise since 2013, while the Nasdaq jumped 16.5 percent in its best quarter since 2012. All three major indexes posted gains of at least 1 percent each for the week and registered gains for the month as well.

Ride-hailing startup Lyft Inc surged more than 20 percent after making its debut on the Nasdaq. The stock ended up 8.7 percent.

Data released on Friday showed U.S. consumer spending barely rose in January and income increased modestly in February, suggesting the economy was losing momentum after growth slowed in the fourth quarter.

Growth fears were triggered last week, when the Federal Reserve abandoned projections for interest rate hikes in 2019 and the U.S. Treasury yield curve inverted for the first time since 2007, historically a harbinger of recession.

However, the yield curve between three-month bills and 10-year notes turned slightly positive on Friday, after being inverted for a week.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Axios on Friday that the Fed should “immediately” cut interest rates by half a percentage point.

With the first quarter earnings reporting season just about two weeks away, investors are bracing for what may be the first U.S. profit decline since 2016. Analysts expect quarterly earnings to fall 1.9 percent from a year earlier, according to Refinitiv data.

Read more

Australian News

Federal Labor will introduce its changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax by January 1 next year if the party wins the May election, but shadow treasurer Chris Bowen does not expect a surge in property sales ahead of the overhaul. The negative gearing reforms will not apply to newly built homes and existing investment properties, while the capital gains tax discount will be halved for investments entered into after January 1.
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Sixty-nine millionaires paid zero tax in 2016-17. Annual data from the Australian Tax Office, released on Friday, shows the list of Australia's millionaires paying no income tax is growing. The data shows in 2016-17, 60 people who declared total incomes above $1 million reported taxable incomes below $6,001, two posted taxable incomes between $6,001 and $10,000, and eight declared taxable incomes between $10,001 and $18,200, putting them all below the tax-free threshold.
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Rio Tinto has declared force majeure to some of its iron ore customers after cyclone damage halted shipping from its Cape Lambert A terminal in the Pilbara. It is understood high winds and big waves from cyclone Veronica earlier this week combined with a spring high tide to damage the terminal.
Read more

Pick, pack and stack: the robot warehouse has arrived. Something roared to life last month that, if it works as expected, will change how one of Australia’s biggest companies does business forever. Surrounded by empty farmland on Melbourne's outer south-east, the robots in Woolworths' brand new distribution centre started to churn out their first deliveries to supermarkets around Victoria.
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Social media executives face up to three years in prison and their companies could be hit with billions of dollars in fines under legislation to be introduced to Parliament next week, marking a dramatic and "world-leading" move by the Morrison government against the dissemination of extremist content online.
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Business groups have urged the federal government to resist the temptation to splash out in the budget, saying every "dollar should be spent wisely", and called for a focus on delivering better living standards. Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said a strong budget and a growing economy were needed to deliver higher wages and improved living standards for all Australians.
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Global News

Brazilian mining giant Vale says a total of four of its dams could collapse at any moment,putting the company under renewed scrutiny just months after a rupture at another of its dams near the city of Brumadinho killed 212 people and left 93 missing. On Wednesday night, the company raised the risk level at three of its mining dams to the highest grade, saying that independent auditors found they would not meet a new safety standard.
Read more

The United States and China said they made progress in trade talks that concluded on Friday in Beijing that Washington called “candid and constructive” as the world’s two largest economies try to resolve a bitter, nearly nine-month trade war.
Read more

US President Donald Trump on Thursday called on OPEC to boost oil output following a fairly steady rise in crude prices in 2019. "Very important that OPEC increase the flow of Oil. World Markets are fragile, price of Oil getting too high. Thank you!" Trump said on Twitter at around 1230 GMT.
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US officials accused Facebook of discrimination Thursday for using its targeted advertising to limit who sees postings for certain kinds of housing. Administrative charges filed by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development said Facebook "unlawfully discriminates based on race, color, national origin, religion, familial status, sex and disability" by restricting who can view housing-related ads.
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Officials probing the crash in Ethiopia of a Boeing 737 Max have preliminarily concluded that a flight-control feature automatically activated before it crashed, the Wall Street Journal says. The newspaper, citing unnamed sources, says the findings were relayed on Thursday at a briefing at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
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Ethiopian Airlines crash victim's family files lawsuit against Boeing over defective flight control system
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Thousands of passengers on both sides of the Atlantic have been left stranded when Iceland's budget WOW airline suddenly declared bankruptcy and halted all operations after efforts to raise more funds failed.
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Corporate America loves deregulation. Then why is it pushing for these rules? Corporate America is once again in a fight over regulation. Except this time, large businesses have switched sides: they're actively asking the government to impose new rules. The bizarre shift is being led by the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, two powerful groups that often plead with Washington to cut red tape.
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US banking giant Goldman Sachs has been fined £34.3 million ($45.3 million, 40.2 million euros) over failures to report transactions properly, British regulators said Thursday. The Wall Street titan was fined for "failing to provide accurate and timely reporting relating to 220.2 million transaction reports" between late 2007 and March 2017, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said in a brief statement.
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UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan has been voted down again, in what could be the final blow to both her premiership and her strategy for taking the UK out of the European Union. The UK is now set for an April 12 Brexit deadline, when it will either crash out of the EU without a deal or have to come up with an alternative way forward and plead with the EU for a long delay in order to secure it.
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Huawei's profits soared to nearly $9 billion last year, powered by its booming smartphone business, but a US-led campaign against the company weighed on sales of telecom equipment. The Chinese tech giant said Friday that 2018 earnings jumped by 25% to 59.3 billion yuan ($8.7 billion). Sales fell short of an earlier company forecast, but still rose by 19.5% to 721 billion yuan ($105 billion).
Read more

Premier Li emerges from trade war shadowlands. But despite his optimistic speech at Hainan’s Boao Forum, all eyes are fixed on the US-China talks in Beijing
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Opinion - Allister Heath: British PM Theresa May's welcome departure is the last chance to save Brexit. Rejoice, rejoice: everything has changed. At some point over the next few weeks, after three painful, debilitating, embarrassing and, above all, largely wasted years, British Prime Minister Theresa May will quit, triggering the mother of all battles for the Tory party's soul.
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Stock News

Pilbara Minerals eyes $1b selldown of Pilgangoora lithium project
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Rare move: Wesfarmers boss digs in on Lynas plan. The photograph of the large crowd of protesters in front of the water is telling. Men and women of all ages, and a number of boys and girls, can be seen wearing T-shirts saying "Save Malaysia". Those at the front of the group are also supporting a poster declaring "Stop Lynas", complete with a radiation symbol crossed out with a red line.
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Otto Energy (ASX:OEL) has entered in a joint venture (JV) with Talos Energy (NYSE:TALO), which will see it earn a 16.67% working interest in the Green Canyon 21 (GC-21) lease in the Gulf of Mexico through paying 22.22% of the cost of the drilling of the Bulleit appraisal well.
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Fe Limited (ASX:FEL) has made further progress with respect to the acquisition of the Pippingarra Lithium Project and the Marble Bar Lithium Project from Mercury Resources Group Pty Ltd. Pursuant to the terms of the acquisition agreement, FEL is required to complete a capital raising of $400,000 through the issue of shares at 2 cents each to persons nominated by Mercury.
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WestStar Industrial Ltds (ASX:WSI) prefabricated concrete construction business Precast Australia has added $2.7 million of contract works to its order book. This includes a significant contract with PACT Construction to supply prefabricated concrete for the construction of the iconic 17-level Arthouse Apartments in Joondalup, Western Australia.
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Opinion - Jared Dillion: Why do 'bad' stocks outperform 'good' ones? The stock market has a nasty habit of turning sure things into sure losers. Consider Nike Inc. In a recent commentary, Bloomberg's Barry Ritholtz explained how many failed to understand the opportunity presented by the sneaker and sports-apparel maker's signing of controversial former National Football League quarterback Colin Kaepernick to a marketing deal.
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Pancake Monday, have fun.