The index started moving higher at 12.30pm and is now in positive territory, up 0.2 per cent. Buy-now-pay-later firm Afterpay is trading above $40 for the first time in weeks, currently 0.8 per cent higher at $40.21. 

And Cochlear is still sitting 10 per cent higher at $249.65 after is main rival announced a recall last night. 

Charter Hall is up 6.4 per cent to $13.95, Cleanaway is up 14 per cent to $2.19, and Domino's Pizza is up 13.1 per cent to $64.98. 

Dragging on the market today is Commonwealth Bank with a 2.9 per cent drop to $87.65 after going ex-dividend by $2. BHP Group is down 1.1 per cent to $38.36, and Coles is down 4.1 per cent to $16.06. 

Tabcorp is down 5.5 per cent to $4.32, and Vicinity Centres are down 4 per cent to $2.40 after revealing an earnings downgrade. 

Jewellery and fashion accessories retailer Lovisa has enjoyed a slight surge in its shares price after posting a solid half-year result this morning.

The Brett Blundy-backed retail chain saw double digit growth in almost all major metrics, with revenue up a whopping 22.2 per cent to $162.8 million, and gross profit increasing 19.1 per cent to $128.5 million.

Net profit after tax saw more muted but still impressive growth, jumping 9.1 per cent to $27.8 million for the half, with the company declaring a dividend of 15 cents per share.  Shares jumped 7 per cent in early trade before easing to be up 2.9 per cent, at $11.30.

While the company runs the majority of its stores in Australia, it has been embarking on significant network expansion internationally, which resulted in 32 new US-based stores and 11 new French stores opened over the half.

The ASX-listed explosives manufacturer Orica has inked a $US203 million ($302 million) deal to buy a leading South American explosives maker.

Orica went into a trading halt on Wednesday morning before the announcement, then shortly afterwards it had agreed to buy Exsa, which it described as the top manufacturer and distributor of industrial explosives in Peru.

Exsa is a major supplier to companies mining copper and gold, and is listed on the Lima Stock Exchange. 

The deal will be funded through a capital raising, which includes a $500 million institutional share placement and a $100 million non-underwritten share purchase plan. Shares are halted at $22.31. 

Orica chief executive Alberto Calderon said the deal would immediately make Orica the number one industrial explosives company in Peru, the "highest growth market" in Latin America.

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Shopping mall owner Vicinity says nearly 60 per cent of its shopping centres have been affected by consumers' fear of places they think might bring them into contact with the coronavirus. In particular, malls that are usually popular with Chinese or Chinese-born visitors such as Chadstone and The Glen.   

Before the virus began to spread in January, foot traffic in Vicinity's malls for the six months to December increased by 0.8 per cent. The Black Friday shopping event last November boosted visitors by 15 per cent across its portfolio.

But since the outbreak, foot traffic has fallen in February by 8.1 per cent so far. This has led to a downgrade in Vicinity's expected earnings per share. 

High-profile malls such as the country's largest shopping centre, Chadstone, Vicinity's vast CBD centres Emporium Melbourne and The Strand in Sydney as well as Chatswood in Sydney and The Glen and Box Hill Central in Melbourne were hardest hit.

The group's extensive network of Direct Factory Outlets (DFOs) are also suffering as travel bans on Chinese visitors to Australia start to bite, eating into luxury sales.

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Aussie tech darling WiseTech blamed the coronavirus for its decision to downgrade its revenue and earnings forecasts for the 2020 financial year as the effective shutdown of China hits global trade. Shares plunged today down to $23.07, a fall of 21.6 per cent, wiping $2 billion off the company's market valuation. 

WiseTech, which provides software services for the trillion-dollar global logistics industry, said the predicted early 2020 recovery from the US-China trade war was "in effect" in January when the virus hit.

"The unexpected outbreak of coronavirus and the effective shutdown of China, a critical driver of the global manufacturing supply chain and a 16 per cent contributor to global GDP, is creating negative flow-on effects to manufacturing, slowing supply chains and economic trade across the world," said Wisetech founder Richard White on the conference call for its half-year results.

He said while the speed of recovery from the virus "will likely create a significant rebound in volumes" the delay may cause some transactional volumes to move into the next reporting period.

Wage growth softened through the final three months of the year, ahead of the summer's bushfires and coronavirus outbreak, in a sign the Reserve Bank's efforts to lift incomes is struggling.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday reported the wage price index rose by 0.5 per cent in the December quarter to be 2.2 per cent up through the year.

Private sector wages increased by 0.5 per cent while public sector wages increased by 0.4 per cent. Both were up by 2.2 per cent through 2019.

Bureau chief economist Bruce Hockman said wages had gone through an "extended period of moderate growth", with a major influence being the "relative stability" of the labour under-utilisation rate.

Australian mining giant Fortescue Metals Group has more than tripled its half-year profit, beating market expectations, on the back of a surge in the price of steelmaking commodity iron ore and record shipments. Fortescue shares are currently 2.2 per cent higher to $11.31. 

The bumper profit of $US2.4 billion ($3.6 billion) for the six months to December 31 delivered an interim dividend windfall of $698 million to its founder and biggest shareholder, mining magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest.

On the back of Chinese steelmakers' elevated demand for Western Australian iron ore, Fortescue's first-half shipments rose 7 per cent from the same time the previous year to reach a record high of 88.6 million tonnes, the company said.

The company said shareholders would receive a 76¢ dividend, below analyst consensus of 89¢.

Full story available here

Salary packaging firm McMillan Shakespeare ticked upwards by nearly three per cent this morning after outlining half-year numbers.

The business flagged tough trading conditions including competition in the local asset management space and uncertainties sparked by Brexit as managment revealed a one per cent drop in revenue to $270 million for the half.

Underlying net profit after tax and amortisation was down 10.3 per cent for the six months to December, sitting at $37.8 million.

The company said it would undertake a strategic review of its UK operations, which produced some of the more disappointing results and finished at a $700,000 loss for the half.

It will pay a 34c fully franked dividend a share, as it did at the same time last year. Shares were up 2.7 per cent in the first hour of trade to $12.46 at 11:00am.