Date October 16, 2014

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Patrick Commins, Jens Meyer

4:58pm: Thats it for Markets Live today — here’s the evening wrap .

Thanks for reading and your comments.

See you all again tomorrow morning from 9.

4:58pm: The Australian sharemarket staged an impressive turnaround to post a gain in a session that followed the wildest swings in United States bond markets since before the global financial crisis. A late surge in the big four bank stocks led the recovery.

After dipping by as much as 1.6 per cent in early trade on Thursday, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index added 0.2 per cent to 5254.9 points, while the broader All Ordinaries Index edged up 0.1 per cent to 5244.3 points.

On Wednesday night, US 10 year Treasuries zig-zagged wildy. Yields dived as much as 14 per cent to as low as 1.86 per cent as investors piled into the bond market, before a sell-off drove them back above 2 per cent. Bond yields and prices move inversely. In US equity markets the S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average were both weaker but closed well above their intraday lows.

It was a pretty amazing move in US bond markets on Wednesday night and that certainly gives investors cause to pause and think, UBS head of fixed income in the Asia Pacific region Anne Anderson said.

There was no clear catalyst for the plunge in the US bond market. which followed some soft retail data, she said.

Fear was at play. and while the global growth outlook is softening, the wild swing in the bond market overplayed the seriousness of the change in market fundamentals, Ms Anderson said.

Many investors simply shrugged off what they saw as the inevitable of volatility, which hopefully will create buying opportunities in coming months.

We remain in a long-term bull market. which I think has another couple of years to run. The economy and market are mid-cycle, and a mid-cycle correction would offer an opportunity for investors to get into the market at reduced valuations, Fidelity Worldwide Investment global chief investment officer Dominic Rossisaid.

In the local bond, currency and equity markets on Thursday, the severity of the reaction was comparatively muted, but the benchmark index lost as much as 80 points before staging its afternoon recovery .

4:43pm: And here are today’s winners and losers among the top 200.

Energy stocks enjoyed a bit of a turnaround after enduring some heavy selling in recent days, while iron ore miners went the other way.

Best and worst performing stocks in the ASX 200 today.

4:32pm: Few would have expected that we would end the day higher after being down as much as 83 points in morning trade and following such a wild night on Wall St .

For that we can thank the banks. which forged higher in the afternoon to propel the ASX 200 to a 9 point, or 0.2 per cent, gain at 5254.9, while the All Ords was up 6 points at 5244.3.

NAB was the best of the Big Four, up 1 per cent, while Westpac, CBA, ANZ all advanced by between 0.6 and 0.9 per cent.

Telstra also had another good day, gaining 0.9 per cent.

Miners had a poor day. with BHP down 1.4 per cent, Rio 1.8 per cent and Fortescue 6 per cent.

4:19pm: Volatility on global markets is undermining the federal budget bottom line and could force the government to rethink its strategy, says economist Stephen Koukoulas: