The S&P/ASX 200 is still firmly higher today with a rise of 0.9 per cent to 6379. The market did reach 6390 shortly after the weak inflation data was released.

Chief investment officer at Crestone Wealth (formerly part of UBS), Scott Haslem, says several factors have fallen into place recently to "hit the sweet spot for some of Australia's equity sectors".

This includes better than expected economic data from China, a more dovish Federal Reserve (meaning it is less likely to increase US interest rates), and constrictions in iron ore production, which pushed the ore price up.
Stock markets around the world dropped in October, November, and December last year, but have now fully recovered.
"What has changed over the last two to three months is the Federal Reserve has stepped back because inflation has moderated," Mr Haslem says.
Economic indicators showed short and sharp drops in the last three months of 2018, which made central banks stop and think about how quickly they were raising rates.
"Central banks have benched themselves for the year," he says.
"Expectations that the Reserve Bank is going to cut the cash rate has added to the rally in the high yield stocks," Mr Haslem says.
"When the RBA typically trims the cash rate it does not do it once, it tends to do it several times."
The inflation data that came out this morning is below expectations and increases the chances of a rate cut in Australia this year, which may boost consumer spending. The recent budget also provided a potential boost for consumer spending with tax cuts for middle to low income earners.

The stock market has gotten another kick upwards today after inflation data came out lower than expected. The S&P/ASX 200 jumped 25 points in the past ten minutes to 6387. Healthcare, info tech, real estate, and financials are leading the market, while energy and materials are underperforming.

Inflation for the March quarter is completely flat with price increases in vegetables, fruit, and take away food, off set by big declines in petrol prices and holiday travel costs. The 0 per cent growth in the three months to March across all groups compares to 0.5 per cent growth in the three months to December. The last time inflation was flat was December 2011.

The Aussie dollar dropped from US70.92 cents on the inflation data to US70.4 cents, a drop of 0.8 per cent. This is because it increases the chances of a cut in the official cash rate.

Both Harvey Norman and JB HiFi stocks are doing very well recently despite both being heavily shorted and low consumer sentiment environment. Inflation data is due out any minute now.

Harvey Norman stocks are up 1 cent today to $4.15 and in today's rallying market reached one-year highs. It was trading at just $3.02 in November last year.

And JB HiFi shares also reached a one-year high of $26.55 in early trading, returning to the price they were back in August 2018.

The S&P/ASX 200 is currently trading at 11-year highs of 6353.60. The last time the ASX was at this level was around Christmas 2007. The all-time high for the index was 6828 reached on 1 November 2007.

Today CSL has added 8 points with a 2.5 per cent gain to $195.20, and the four banks and Macquarie Group have collectively added 10.4 points to the market. Currently 141 companies are higher while 50 are lower.

The laggers today include iron ore miners like BHP, which is down 0.8 per cent to $38.01, South32 is down 2 per cent to $3.40, and Fortescue Metals is down 2 per cent to $7.58.

Macquarie Group is up 1.97 per cent this morning to an all-time high of $136.47. This gives the 'millionaires factory' a market capitalisation of $46.4 billion and makes it the 7th biggest company in Australia, behind the four banks, CSL and two miners, but ahead of Woolworths, Wesfarmers, and Telstra.

If you were lucky enough to have money during the GFC to buy Macquarie shares during the 2009 market crash when they dipped to $26.60, your shares have increased by 400 per cent.

This morning the Financial Review reported Macquarie's plans to enter the mobile phone market with a new business called Nu Mobile. It will specialise in mobile phone plans that are bundled with used handsets. The model, which is cheaper than buying new smartphones on a plan, is popular in the United States but is yet to take off in Australia.

Nu Mobile will not own its own mobile infrastructure, instead reselling access to Telstra's mobile network. That will class it as a mobile virtual network operator, putting it in the same category as players such as Amaysim, TPG, Vocus and Kogan, in a $750 million-a-year market.

Read the full story about Nu Mobile by James Fernyhough here.

Shares in Northern Star Resources are down 3.9 per cent while the rest of the market is up 0.8 per cent today. Shares are currently at $8.16, the lowest price since 25 January, 2019.

This morning it released a quarterly report that missed analyst expectations although Northern Star maintains its production guidance of between 850 and 900 thousand ounces for the full year 2018-19. Gold sold was 185.3 thousand ounces, compared to expectations of 219.9 thousand ounces. And its cash at the bank is $287.7 million compared to expectations of $311.1 million.

"This is clearly a weaker quarter than our forecast, owing primarily to the softer set of numbers at Pogo (mine), where delivery of additional/replacement fleet and a transition to long-hole stoping led to a less productive quarter than our estimates," Royal Bank of Canada analyst Paul Hissey wrote in a note to clients this morning.

"In some respects, Northern Star is facing the challenge of delivering into the market's lofty expectations around Pogo, which saw a very positive market reaction upon news of the deal announced in September 2018. In fairness, the management team have always spoken of needing time to properly transition the business, although it appears that what we had assumed to be a conservative approach still seems too optimistic. We see no reason to believe that NST cannot successfully deliver improvements, but it may well take every one of the 18 months highlighted in the commentary as a timeframe."

An Australian-listed company this morning says keep plant roots warm with its special technology will increase bean yields by 40 per cent.

"The results came from a grower in Southern Israel who purchased a Roots Root Zone Temperature Optimisation system and conducted the growing in hoop houses during the Israeli winter from November 2018 to March 2019," ROOTS tells the market this morning.

"The region is arid and known for severe temperature fluctuations between day and night...the roots of the Yardlong Beans plants were heated at night to around 20 degrees. This stabilised the plants despite air temperatures in the hoop house frequently dropping to five degrees while roots of control plantings fluctuated between 13 and 18 degrees."

Roots Sustainable Agriculture shares are up 9.8 per cent this morning to 7.8 cents.

The ASX is open and up 23 points already to 6342, a rise of 0.4 per cent. All sectors are currently positive with the best gains in healthcare and information technology.

CSL is up 1.8 per cent to $193.77 and the four banks are rising.

Northern Star Resources is down 4 per cent to $8.15 after released its quarterly report this morning.

AV Jennings will buy the remaining 50 per cent of the Jimboomba residential greenfields site 40 kilometers south-west of Brisbane, which contains about 1,200 lots.

"By having 100 per cent ownership of this attractive development we can implement our plans to provide a broad range of quality product offerings including quality affordable homes for first home buyers and others looking for residential property in one of Australia's fastest growing regions," AV Jennings' managing director Peter Summers told the market this morning.

AV Jennings shares are hovering around five-year lows and last traded at 50.5 cents.

Some interesting announcements to the market this morning:

• Trade Me has appointed Anders Skoe as its new chief executive. Mr Skoe will re-located from Norway, where he is currently chief executive of Finn.no and senior executive at media company Schibsted. He previously worked at Google.
• Cromwell Property Group will not proceed with plans to buy UK-based RDI Real Estate Investment Trust because the RDI board considered the offer too low.
• Vicinity Centres' chair Peter Hay is retiring after four years. He will be replaced by non-executive director Peter Kahan, who spent 25 years working in senior roles at the Gandel Group. The Gandel Group still co-owns Vicinity's major asset, Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne.