Good morning traders. Thanks to @ttward, @Ravgnome and the Aftermarket loungers.

 

Jay Powell just finished speaking as I write this, so some may be irrelevant by the time I finished. Last year he was scaring the market half to death on a regular basis, but so far the markets have responded very well today; finally finding the right tone in the fedspeak that the market was looking for. The Dow (1.8%), S&P 500 (1.5%), & Nasdaq (2.1%) all well up this morning.

 

ASX Market Report

 

The Australian share market has closed higher after a fluctuating trading session with the resources sector putting in a strong performance.

 

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 12.5 points, or 0.21 per cent, to 5,886.7 at 1630 AEDT on Wednesday, while the broader All Ordinaries was up 11.6 points, or 0.2 per cent, lower at 5,951.1.

 

Investors have been cautious in light of ongoing trade negotiations with China, and as the US Federal Reserve's policy committee has its first meeting of the year to decide on interest rates.

 

"This has certainly played on the minds of investors who are waiting to see and get a bit more clarity from both scenarios", CommSec markets analyst James Tao said.

 

Both the US and China have until March to nut out an agreement before tariffs increase between the two countries. “And that's something everyone wants to avoid," Mr Tao said.

 

While investors in the Australian market continued their "ball watching", strong gains in the mining sector continued off the back of a spike in iron ore prices. This comes amidst concerns of iron ore supply shortages following the deadly Minas Gerais mining disaster in Brazil.

 

Shares for mining giant BHP were up 2.55 per cent to $34.60, Rio Tinto up 4.51 per cent to $87.30, while Fortescue Metals rose 7.75 per cent to $5.42.

 

The Aussie dollar rallied on the news inflation rates had risen 0.5 per cent in the December quarter which was more than expected, buying 71.95 US Cents at the close.

 

While the Aussie dollar jumped about half a US cent following the data's release, Mr Tao said the RBA would remain on the sidelines, unlikely to raise the cash rate any time soon.

 

Energy stocks made steady gains over the day after an overnight oil price rise.

 

Beach Energy was up 3.96 per cent to $1.70, Origin Energy rose 0.56 per cent to $7.17 and Santos climbed 1.45 per cent to $6.31.

 

Wins in the mining sector were largely offset by the heavyweight financials with all four banks lowered at the close.

Commonwealth Bank finished 0.15 per cent lower at $71.24, ANZ was down 0.39 per cent at $25.48, NAB closed down 0.04 per cent to $24.25 while Westpac finished 0.4 per cent lower at $25.19.

 

Elsewhere in the market Qantas shares dived down 5.09 per cent to $5.59 while Virgin stocks fell 2.7 per cent to 18 cents, after Air New Zealand reported a drop in bookings due to a dwindling tourism market.

 

ON THE ASX:

*The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 12.5 points, or 0.21 per cent, to 5,886.7

*The All Ordinaries was up 11.6 points, or 0.2 per cent, lower at 5,951.1

* At 1630 AEDT, the SPI200 futures index was up 10 points, or 0.17 per cent, at 5,827.0

 

CURRENCY SNAPSHOT AT 1630 AEDT:

One Australian dollar buys:

*71.95 US cents, from 71.65 US US on Tuesday

*78.66 Japanese yen, from 78.30

*62.90 euro cents, from 62.68

*54.96 British pence, from 54.50

*105.06 NZ cents, from 104.68

 

GOLD:

The spot price of gold in Sydney at 1630 AEDT was $US1313.74 per fine ounce, from $US1303.93 on Tuesday.

 

In Asia

 

Asian equities steadied on Wednesday as investors awaited Federal Reserve policy guidance and the outcome of high level trade talks between the United States and China, while drawing relief from Apple Inc’s earnings.

 

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan tacked on 0.3 percent, booking its first gain of the week. South Korea’s KOSPI added nearly 1.1 percent.

 

China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite and Japan’s Nikkei bucked the trend, each slipping about half a percent.

 

Chinese iron ore futures jumped nearly 6 percent, hitting their daily upside limit, after Brazil’s Vale SA said it was cutting output following a deadly tailings dam disaster.

 

The most traded iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange rose to 589 yuan ($87.51) a tonne, the highest since early September 2017.

Read more

In Europe

 

Luxury stocks were a silver lining for European markets on Wednesday after strong results from LVMH reassured investors, while looming U.S.-China trade talks kept trading muted and some earnings disappointments weighed.

 

Europe’s STOXX 600 traded sideways before closing up 0.25 percent and was on track for its best monthly performance since October 2015.

 

Britain’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.6 percent thanks to a weaker pound boosting London-listed multinational exporters.

 

German payments company Wirecard was the worst performer on the pan-European index, falling 13.3 percent as it denied a report in the Financial Times that alleged financial wrongdoing.

 

European companies listed on the STOXX 600 index are currently expected to report 3.6 percent year-on-year earnings growth in the fourth quarter, sharply lower than the 4.8 percent forecast last week.

 

“We see earnings growth expectations for 2019 as still too high. We’re probably still between 8 or 9 percent growth for this year and that will probably have to come down to low-to-mid single digits,” Britta Weidenbach, head of European equities at DWS, said.

 

“What is interesting is that some of the stocks already have been punished so hard in the recent downturn, especially at the end of last year, that actually they react rather positively to results that are, in a way, disappointing,” Weidenbach said.

 

 

In the United States

 

U.S. stocks surged on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it would be patient in lifting borrowing costs further this year, reassuring investors worried about a slowing economy.

 

Along with better-than-feared quarterly results from Apple Inc , the Fed’s comments helped Wall Street reverse two down days triggered by profit warnings from U.S. bellwethers that signaled a bigger impact from a slowdown in China.

The Fed held interest rates steady, as widely expected.

 

While the Fed said continued U.S. economic and job growth were still “the most likely outcomes,” it removed language from its December policy statement that risks to the outlook were “roughly balanced” and struck language that projected “some further” rate hikes would be appropriate in 2019.

 

Investors in recent months have become more concerned about the global economy. Recent U.S. corporate results have shown companies including Apple, Intel Corp and Caterpillar Inc are feeling the effects of slowing expansion of China’s economy, which has been hurt by a trade conflict with the United States.

 

“They seem to be, for lack of a better term, capitulating to the market at this point. Which is, ‘we are paying attention to the volatility, we are paying attention more to the downside risks more than the upside risks’,” said Jason Ware, chief investment officer at Albion Financial Group in Salt Lake City, Utah.

 

Following the Fed’s rate announcement, all three main U.S. stock indexes extended gains from earlier in the session.

 

Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc, set to report after the closing bell, were up more than 2 percent.

 

Of the 168 S&P 500 companies that have reported results so far, 73.2 percent have topped profit estimates, according to Refinitiv data.

 

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 4.29-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.38-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

 

The S&P 500 posted 18 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 23 new highs and 25 new lows.

Read more

 

Australian News

 

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5 per cent in the December quarter 2018, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures. This follows a rise of 0.4 per cent in the September quarter.

 

The most significant rises in the December quarter are tobacco (+9.4 per cent), domestic holiday travel and accommodation (+6.2 per cent), fruit (+5.0 per cent), new dwellings purchased by owner-occupiers (+0.4 per cent) and furniture (+1.8 per cent). The rise is partially offset by falls in automotive fuel (-2.5 per cent), audio visual and computing equipment (-3.3 per cent), wine (-1.9 per cent) and telecommunications equipment and services (-1.5 per cent).

Read more

 

The Australia dollar bounced after a reading on domestic inflation proved not to be as weak as bears had wagered on, forcing a spurt of short covering.
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The Reserve Bank is facing fresh pressure to consider an interest rate cut with new figures confirming inflation under control and few signs the economy is growing strongly enough to drive up wages or prices. Ahead of the RBA's first meeting of the year next week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported consumer prices grew by 0.5 per cent in the three months to the end of December, taking the annual inflation rate down slightly to 1.8 per cent.
Read more

 

Housing slump bites as Sydney apartments line up for fire sale.
Read more

 

Most companies which listed on the Australian share market in 2018 "performed poorly", and the outlook for this year is looking rather downbeat. Half of the 93 businesses which floated last year lost, on average, 18 per cent of their value — with a quarter suffering losses of 50 per cent or more.
Read more

 

The Australian chairman of Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies believes the company has been caught up in "China bashing". A frustrated John Lord made the statement to The Australian Financial Review after the United States announced criminal charges would be laid against the global firm and its chief financial officer. 
Read more

 

Global News

 

Shamed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for failing to keep prices lower, Turkish retailers are emptying shelves of some items altogether.

 

Some supermarkets won’t sell green peppers and aubergines, two of the ingredients used widely in Turkish cuisine and whose wholesale prices have soared as high as 10 liras ($1.9) per kilogram, Hurriyet reported Tuesday.

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Chinese executives are sounding warning bells over the world’s second-largest economy. At least 20 companies, including China Life Insurance Co. and Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., told investors late Tuesday that full-year earnings would fall well short of expectations.

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American refineries will feel the unintended consequences of Trump's Venezuela crackdown. The United States and Venezuela are going through a painful divorce that will have sweeping consequences for the global oil industry. US oil prices surged 3% on Tuesday after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on PDVSA, Venezuela's state-owned oil company. 
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Will the US and China finally agree a trade deal? Top trade officials from the US and China are meeting in Washington as a deadline to strike a deal approaches. This is the second round of talks since Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in Argentina last year and agreed to negotiate in the hope of defusing an escalating tariff war. 
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The FBI is investigating Chinese economic espionage in nearly all of its 56 field offices around the country, underscoring the depth of the threat to US business, Director Christopher Wray told Congress Tuesday. "China writ large is the most significant counterintelligence threat we face," Wray told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a hearing on foreign threats. 
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U.S. private payrolls increased solidly in January, pointing to sustained labor market strength despite a recent easing in consumer and business confidence that has suggested a loss of momentum in the economy. 
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Facebook is halting a scheme that gathered highly personal data from paid volunteers, after it was exposed. TechCrunch said participants - including those aged 13-17 - had been paid up to $20 (£15.30) a month to open up their phones to deep analysis. 
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Apple hoped to offset slowing demand for iPhones by raising the prices of its most important product, but that strategy seems to have backfired after sales sagged during the holiday shopping season. Results released Tuesday revealed the magnitude of the iPhone slump - a 15 per cent drop in revenue from the previous year. 
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World's most hated stocks: How Brexit hurts UK business. It may take more than a delay in Brexit to lure foreign funds back to UK stocks, a market that's been deemed by some strategists as "uninvestable." No matter that banks from Citigroup to JPMorgan Chase have touted UK shares, and no matter their cheap valuations. 
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Stock News

 

Alto Metals reveals historical high-grade gold intersections at Ladybird. The company’s goal is to define a +1 million ounce gold resource at the Sandstone Gold Project. 
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Saturn Metals aims for further gold resource expansion at Apollo Hill after 2018 resource upgrade. The 180,000-ounce increase was driven by both the increase in grade as well as in tonnage. 
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MACA in line for $306m work on Emerald Resources’ Cambodian Okvau gold project 
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Blackearth Minerals NL (ASX:BEM) has received positive scoping study results at the Maniry Graphite Project in southern Madagascar, progressing development towards the full feasibility stage. The company appointed Battery Limits Pty Ltd to begin the scoping work on the project in August last year. 
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Australian Fresh Milk Holdings has completed the purchase of the Coomboona dairy farm, ending Harvey Norman's disastrous association with the dairy sector. ASX-listed Freedom Foods says Australian Fresh Milk Holdings, in which it owns a 10 per cent stake, has bought the operation in Northern Victoria. 
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G Medical Innovations Holdings Ltd (ASX:GMV) has executed its first US commercial orders valued at almost US$22 million for its Prizma Medical smart-phone case and Vital Signs Monitoring System. The purchaser is diversified US healthcare company Hygea and two subsidiaries, Palm Medical Group and Allcare Management Services, specialising in many aspects of healthcare from insurance, finance, medicine and technology. 
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engage:BDR secures additional capital for growth opportunities 
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Telstra is looking outside Australia to fill many of the 1500 technology roles that were created as part of its massive restructure. The carrier announced in June last year it would eliminate 9500 roles but create 1500 new roles, putting net job losses at around 8000 people. 
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archTIS prepares for commercial launch of Kojensi Gov cybersecurity platform in April 
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Out of respect for your fellow traders, please include the Stock Code in your post (or use the OT tag for off topic stuff).

I love Turkish food, also a nice Hawaiian Berry smoothie