Shanghai | The escalating trade war between China and the United States caught equity investors off guard last year, turning what was meant to be a Goldilocks year into a horror show.

And already this year it has become the central focus of anxious sharemarket investors.

So as officials of the two nations met this week in Beijing to talk trade, about 2800 delegates gathered in Shanghai for the UBS Greater China conference to seek guidance.

Jonathan Shapiro has the full analysis piece here.

Australian shares continue to lift through afternoon trade, buoyed by a number of index heavyweights.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index is 33.1 points, or 0.6 per cent, higher at 5716.3.

CSL is trading 1.7 per cent higher, Westpac is up 0.9 per cent and Macquarie is up 1.8 per cent.

Automotive Holdings Group is up 5.6 per cent, New Hope Corp is up 4.9 per cent and Bingo Industries 4.8 per cent.

CommSec Research has noted that despite trade war concerns, Australia and China's relationship has never been better.

Australia's exports to China and Australia's imports from China hit record highs in the year to November, with China now accounting for 34.1 per cent of Australia's exports.

"China and the US may be locked in a trade dispute, but in Australia, two-way trade with China is going gangbusters," noted CommSec senior economist Ryan Felsman.

"Both the goods we receive from China and the exports we send to China hit record highs over the year to November. And both exports are imports are growing at a double-digit annual pace.

Australia's trade surplus narrowed in November, falling below economists' expectations on lower coal exports.

The $1.9 billion trade surplus marked the country's eleventh straight trade surplus, with exports up 1 per cent to $38.4 billion and imports lifting 2 per cent to $36.5 billion, Australian Bureau of Statistics seasonally-adjusted data showed on Tuesday.

The Australian dollar weakened immediately after the data, dropping from US71.45¢ to US71.38¢ before recovering to trade at US71.46¢.

Sarah Turner has the full story here.

This weekend will mark the 10th anniversary of the very first transaction involving bitcoin. A decade later the future of bitcoins and the host of the so-called cryptocurrencies that it spawned is still uncertain, writes Stephen Bartholomeusz.​

On 12 January 2009, someone who called themselves Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 bitcoins to a US software engineer, Hal Finney (they may, some believe, have been one and the same). The coins were virtually worthless and it took more than two years before the first exchange of bitcoins for goods – 10,000 bitcoin for two pizzas worth about $US30 ($42) – occurred.

For most of their history cryptocurrencies have been a curiosity, a peer-to-peer anti-establishment version of digital cash that was more of a concept than a functioning currency.

Read the full piece here.

What's in a name? For MasterCard, not enough.

The company is removing the word Mastercard from the pair of interlocking red and yellow circles where it has resided for more than 50 years.

Mastercard joins a small stable of brands like Nike, Apple and Target that rely on an image and not a name in most marketing materials.

It points to the changing nature of exchanging currency. One of the original major credit card companies – originally known as Interbank before changing its name to Master Charge and later Mastercard – it has attempted to rebrand itself in recent years as a technology company in the global payments industry.

The Australian sharemarket has clawed back the losses this morning to be trading firmly in the green at midday.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index is up 21.5 points, or 0.4 per cent, at 5704.7.

CSL is leading the market gains, up 1.3 per cent, followed by Telstra and Westpac as the major banks lift into positive territory.

Bingo Industries is up 5.7 per cent, Bravura Solutions has climbed 4.4 per cent and New Hope Corp is up 4.3 per cent.

The stakes in the two days of face-to-face trade negotiations in Beijing between the US and China that start on Monday are substantial, and not just for the US and China, writes Stephen Bartholomeusz.

While a failure to agree when US deputy trade representative Jeff Gerrish meets his Chinese counterparts probably wouldn't result in a "mutually assured destruction" outcome for the world's two largest economies it would inevitably produce mutually assured damage with, because they are the world's two largest and most important economies, significant spill-over effects for the rest of the world.

Donald Trump has correctly identified the fact that China is vulnerable in these negotiations, with its economy weakening.

Read the full piece here.

Kingscliff-based hedge fund Goldsky Asset Management and its owner Kenneth Grace will pay a combined $US75,000 ($105,000) in civil penalties to the American corporate watchdog, court documents reveal.

The court orders were made about three months after the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged the firm with making false and misleading statements, which was first revealed by The Australian Financial Review in October. However, there was no finding or admission of guilt as part of the resolution of the SEC's action.

A final judgment from the Southern District Court of New York Court dated January 2 ordered Goldsky to pay a civil penalty of $US50,000 to the SEC within 30 days. The court also ordered Mr Grace to pay a $US25,000 civil penalty to the SEC within 30 days, the documents showed. Mr Grace did not respond to a request for comment on the orders.

Sarah Turner has the full story here.

Afterpay has rejected rival Zip Pay's call for industry-wide responsible lending checks, saying the government shouldn't take a one-size-fits-all approach to the buy-now, pay-later sector.

The rift comes ahead of Afterpay and Zip's scheduled appearance before a Senate committee later this month in Brisbane where Young Rich listers, Zip's Larry Diamond and Afterpay's Nick Molnar, will give evidence.

Zip's co-founder Peter Gray said the buy-now, pay-later providers should comply with a limited version of responsible lending obligations, by verifying customers' identity, income and credit history.

Misa Han has the full story here.