Good morning traders. Thanks @ttward, @Ravgnome & the aftermarket loungers.

That grotesque creature that is Brexit is now 17 days away from apparently happening,, but still, after all this time, and less than 3 weeks left, still no one is sure what is going to happen, or even if it is going to happen. Just madness.

ASX Market Report

The Australian sharemarket has started the week on a down note, with energy investors appeared spooked by news the world's largest wealth fund plans to sell its stakes in oil and gas companies.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed down 23.6 points, or 0.38 per cent, to 6,180.2 points at 1615 AEDT on Monday, while the broader All Ordinaries closed down 23.8 points, or 0.38 per cent, at 6,263.3.

Every sector was down except telecom, with energy shares leading losses, down 1.55 per cent. The falls follow reports on the weekend that Norway's trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund will drop investments in energy explorers and producers, although it will keep shares in integrated oil and gas companies such as BP and Shell.

Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist with CMC Markets, said while the $US37 billion ($A52.5b) in oil exploration shares being sold off wasn't actually much in global terms, "it seems to have gripped the imagination today. "It does look like there's a bit more fear than greed at the moment."

Santos, Woodside Petroleum, Oil Search, Origin Energy and Beach Energy were down between 1.73 per cent and 2.44 per cent.

Mining giant BHP was down 0.98 per cent, Rio Tinto down 0.67 per cent, South32 down 0.26 per cent and Fortescue Metals down 2.31 per cent.

Gold stocks jumped after the price of yellow metal jumped one per cent, with Newcrest - which said it bought a majority stake in Canadian copper and gold mine Red Chris - up 3.8 per cent, Northern Star up 4.48 per cent and Evolution Mining up 4.3 per cent.

Telco Telstra was up 0.62 per cent, while pharma giant CSL was down 0.27 per cent.

Shares of Appen were in a trading halt after it agreed to pay as much as $A426 million for artificial intelligence dataset company Figure Eight.

Shares of Perpetual Limited jumped 12.27 per cent on no apparent news, leading to speculation the financial products company was a takeover target, Mr McCarthy said.

The big banks were flat.

Trading was thin because of a public holiday in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.

The Aussie dollar is buying 70.42 US cents, from 70.01 US cents on Friday.

ON THE ASX:

* The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 23.6 points, or 0.38 per cent, at 6,180.2 points at 1630 AEDT on Monday.

* The All Ordinaries was down 23.8 points, or 0.38 per cent, at 6,263.3.

* At 1630 AEDT, the SPI200 futures index down four points at 6150.

CURRENCY SNAPSHOT AT 1630 AEDT:

One Australian dollar buys:

* 70.42 US cents, from 70.01 US on Friday

* 78.22 Japanese yen, from 77.81

* 62.69 euro cents, from 62.56

* 54.26 British pence, from 53.55

* 103.50 NZ cents, from 103.64

GOLD:

The spot price of gold in Sydney at 1630 AEDT was $US 1297.70 per fine ounce, from $US1285.38 on Friday.

In Asia

Talk of more stimulus from China helped world share markets regain some ground on Monday after a slew of concerning economic data.

China’s main bourses made back almost half the 4 percent they lost in Friday’s mauling as the country’s central bank chief pledged more support, but not everywhere was so spritely.

MSCI’s broadest Asia-Pacific index had climbed 0.4 percent, paring a quarter of Friday’s 1.6 percent fall. Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.5 percent too after four consecutive sessions in the red last week.

China’s blue-chip CSI300 index jumped 1.9 percent after Friday’s 4.0 percent fall, which followed poor trade data and a major local bank issuing a rare “sell” rating on a major insurer.

China’s central bank on Sunday pledged further support by spurring loans and lowering borrowing costs.

It came as data showed new bank loans in China fell a bit more than expected in February, while money supply growth also missed forecasts.

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In Europe

European shares had their best day in four weeks on Monday, rebounding from three straight sessions in the red thanks notably to merger chatter in the battered banking sector, which help offset worries over a slowdown in the global economy.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed up 0.8 percent, its best daily performance since Feb. 15.

London’s export-heavy FTSE gradually lost steam, as the pound rose on optimism about the progress of Britain’s exit from the European Union ahead of a key vote in Parliament scheduled for Tuesday.

German lender Commerzbank was among the biggest gainers on the STOXX 600, up 7.1 percent, after reports at the weekend of a possible tie-up with Deutsche Bank, which also rose 5 percent.

The management board of Deutsche has agreed to hold talks with Commerzbank on the feasibility of a merger, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Saturday.

On Friday, a German magazine said the CEOs of the two banks had been in intense talks for some days.

Shares in Boeing fell 7 percent in New York after some airlines grounded the company’s new 737 MAX 8 passenger jet following Sunday’s fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash. European rival Airbus edged up 1.3 percent, while Safran fell 1.7 percent. The 737 MAX 8 uses LEAP-1B engines made by a joint venture of General Electric Co and Safran.

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In the United States

U.S. stocks jumped on Monday after five straight sessions of declines, led by gains in technology shares, but a fall in the shares of the world’s largest planemaker after a fatal crash in Ethiopia limited gains on the Dow.

Boeing Co, the best-performing Dow component this year by a wide margin, was down 6.4 percent at $395.67 after many airlines grounded the company’s new 737 MAX 8 passenger jet after a second deadly crash in just five months.

But the stock was well off its lows of the day, and that helped the market to march even higher in afternoon trading. The industrial sector reversed early losses to climb 0.5 percent.

“After the weakness in the markets last week, things have gotten a little bit oversold,” said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.

The day’s move is especially impressive given the decline in Boeing. “It’s a very strong sign of overall market strength,” James said.

All the major S&P sectors were trading higher, led by gains in the technology sector, which was up about 2 percent. Chipmaker Nvidia Corp jumped after entering a $6.8 billion deal to buy Mellanox Technologies Ltd. The Israeli chip designer also rose.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 146.35 points, or 0.58 percent, to 25,596.59, the S&P 500 gained 35.87 points, or 1.31 percent, to 2,778.94 and the Nasdaq Composite added 136.63 points, or 1.84 percent, to 7,544.78.

Apple Inc rose 3.3 percent after Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded the iPhone maker’s shares to “buy”.

Recent economic data showed U.S. retail sales rose unexpectedly in January, some welcome news for the economy after a raft of weak December data as well as a sharp moderation in the pace of job growth in February.

The S&P 500 fell 2.2 percent last week, its biggest decline since end-2018, as the tepid U.S. jobs growth report added to fears of a slowing global economy.

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Australian News

Want growth? Invest in wages. A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to 28 years of recession-free growth, and that was total credit outstanding rocketed more than eight times to $2.91 trillion while gross domestic product did little more than double.
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NSW Labor claims western Sydney is being "clobbered" by over-development, while the Government says it's on track to meet the city's housing shortfall. The data suggests both are right.
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The next financial danger zone for WA homeowners amid depressed property market. First-homebuyers may be rejoicing at falling house price forecasts of up to 25 per cent in some cities, but for others it’s terrible news. People already repaying mortgages can face negative equity — when what they owe is more than the value of their property.
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The financial regulator has called out the big banks for "unreasonably delayed" and in some cases "legalistic" fees-for-no-service reviews. ASIC says Westpac, ANZ, NAB, Macquarie and AMP have yet to complete reviews of systemic fees-for-no-service failures beyond those already reported since 2013.
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Australia’s major banks and insurance companies are now facing a $1.15 billion compensation bill to repay victims of their fee-for-no-service scandal, and the size of the bill is still growing. The corporate regulator has also accused the financial institutions of dragging their feet on attempts to identify more victims, saying internal reviews of their systems have been “unreasonably delayed.”
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Banks under pressure to shift to fee-for-service model for mortgage brokers
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WA investor wins $11.2m payout from QBE over dodgy trades by Stripe Capital broker. Insurer QBE has been told to pay out $11.2 million to a WA sharemarket investor stung by a dodgy stockbroker more than 10 years ago. The investor, Beverley Margetts, was a client of disgraced Stripe Capital broker Todd King, who was jailed for two years on a separate matter in 2014 for stealing.
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On the rocks: The untold story of the Nant Whisky scandal. A series of intriguing connections between boardroom players behind the scenes of Nant's collapse raises new questions about who got paid while others lost millions.
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Cult fashion startup Shoes of Prey has collapsed into liquidation after months of speculation over its future. Kelly Trenfield and John Park of FTI Consulting were appointed as liquidators on Monday.
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Global News

U.S. retail sales rose modestly in January after a December drop that was even larger than originally estimated, but the recovery was not seen strong enough to alter the course of a U.S. economy that was losing momentum in early 2019.
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Nvidia Corp. won a reported bidding war for high-performance-computing equipment maker Mellanox Technologies Ltd., announcing Monday morning that the two companies had agreed to a deal valued at nearly $7 billion.
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Tesla will raise the price of its vehicles after going back on a recent decision to close most of its stores. The electric car maker said in a statement late Sunday that prices for most models worldwide would go up by about 3% after it decided to "keep significantly more stores open than previously announced."
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EU eyes cash demands as Brexit talks turn sour. Britain will face EU demands for billions of euros in cash if it fails to strike a Brexit deal, Brussels officials and diplomats said on Monday after talks with London stalled 18 days before it is due to leave the bloc.
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A Brexit deal seemed close on Saturday after the EU indicated legal ways for London to unilaterally leave the contentious Irish border backstop, sources in the bloc said, but the plan was rejected by British Prime Minister Theresa May's cabinet. The bloc's Brexit negotiators on Monday updated envoys of the 27 states staying in the European Union after Brexit on the status of the talks, which have stalled just 18 days before Britain is due to leave on March 29.
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A report into the impact of Brexit on banking and finance firms says some £900bn in financial firms' assets have been moved out of the UK. It adds this has cost £3bn-4bn and involves 5,000 expected staff moves or local hires, and that figure will rise.
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Britain’s luxury sector, including names such as fashion house Burberry and car maker Bentley, could lose up to 6.8 billion pounds in exports a year if the world’s fifth largest economy crashes out of the European Union without a deal, research commissioned by the sector indicated.
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Turkey went into recession at the end of last year, according to the country's official statistics office. The Turkish Statistical Institute said the economy shrank by 2.4% in the fourth quarter of 2018, from the previous quarter.
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The tragic Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday is raising doubts on Wall Street about Boeing. Boeing's (BA) stock declined 7% on Monday afternoon in the aftermath of the second deadly crash of its bestselling 737 MAX 8 jet in five months
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Stock News

Panoramic Resources Ltd (ASXAN) is seeking almost $20 million from a capital raising exercise to ramp-up production from the Savannah nickel ore body and expedite a development drive to the higher-grade Savannah North ore body. The capital raising includes an initial placement and an entitlement offer.
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Gindalbie Metals Ltd (ASX:GBG) has proposed to demerge its wholly-owned subsidiary Coda Minerals to Gindalbie shareholders and to sell Gindalbie to Chinese company Ansteel for a cash consideration. If both transactions are implemented, Gindalbie shareholders will receive 2.6 cents for each Gindalbie share, representing a 90% premium to Gindalbie’s 30-day volume weighted average price.
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White Cliff Minerals raises up to $1.15 million to develop key WA projects. Nearly $650,000 was raised from shareholders in the rights issue and the remaining shortfall shares have been committed to by CPS clients.
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Otto Energy Limited (ASX:OEL) has started work on build-out facilities to bring its Lightning Well into production in the Gulf Coast program in Matagorda County, Texas. Operated by Hilcorp Energy, the Gulf Coast program is testing several geologically-independent prospects including Lightning Well and Don Julio 2, which are mainly amplitude-supported on modern 3D seismic.
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Key Petroleum executes MOU with Santos for gas processing
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Embattled valuation firm LandMark White faces "serious consequences" if it is not supported by the big four banks, according to the chairman, Keith Perrett. The major banks all stopped using LandMark White as an independent valuer for the banks for home loan assessments after a data breach in late January saw about 137,000 potential loan applications released onto the internet.
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Jayride Group Limited (ASX:JAY) has secured a finance facility of $3 million from Pure Asset Management Pty Ltd. The funds will be in two tranches of $2 million and $1 million each, with the first tranche of $2 million expected to be drawn down this month.
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Nasdaq up 2% overnight, Dow weighed down by Boeing but still closed up .8%. Here’s hoping the markets are kind to us today.

Today, treakfast will be served at 35000 feet as we try to help out the airline.