ASX Today Live News & Analysis

The Australian share market has edged higher, after paring early gains from hopes incoming US tariffs would be more targeted than expected.

The S&P/ASX200 rose 9.3 points, or 0.12 per cent higher, to 7,934.5, while the broader All Ordinaries gained 6.2 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 8,113.1.

The top 200 pared-back an early spike after Wall Street rallied on indications that blanket, 20 per cent tariffs on all trading partners was less likely than a targeted approach.

"Obviously that's good to take the worst-case scenario off the table potentially, but we don't know," Capital.com senior market analyst Kyle Rodda told AAP.

"We won't know until tomorrow morning, so quite naturally, markets are jittery before such announcements."

Six of 11 sectors closed higher, with real estate up 1.6 per cent after capital city house prices rose for a second straight month and bets on a May rate cut held relatively steady.

Charter Hall and Goodman Group both gained more than three per cent, while Lendlease rose 2.5 per cent.

Materials and energy stocks were the worst performing sectors, down 1.6 and 1.3 per cent. The two sectors are most sensitive to trade war volatility, showing uncertainty still hangs over tomorrow's tariff announcements.

BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue were all down more than 1.5 per cent despite iron ore prices sitting at two-week highs.

Overnight, US manufacturing data came in lower than expected and showed the sector to be in contraction, which could flag weakness in the US economy and have implications for global growth.

"The uncertainty generated by the Trump administration's trade policies is causing fairly significant pullbacks in investment, employment intentions and just general demands amongst the manufacturing sector in the US," Mr Rodda said.

Oil prices rolled over last night after hitting nearly five-week highs, falling roughly 0.8 per cent as tariff concerns weighed on the demand outlook for crude.

Brent crude futures were trading near $US74.23 a barrel at 5pm AEDT.

Financials stocks performed well, up 0.7 per cent with all big four banks in the green, but the index has only recovered about a third of its sell-off from when mid-February earnings disappointed investors.

Penfolds owner Treasury Wine Estates was the worst performer of the top-200, pouring-out 5.4 per cent of its market cap after Citi downgraded the stock to 'neutral' from 'buy'.

The Australian dollar gained ground on the greenback, and was buying 62.94 US cents, up from 62.56 US cents on Tuesday at 5pm.

ON THE ASX:

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index rose 9.3 points, or 0.11 per cent higher, to 7,934.5

The broader All Ordinaries rose 6.2 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 8,113.1

The NZX 50 added 7.59 points (0.06%) to 12,320.19 while the Nikkei gained 101.39 points (0.28%) at the time of writing, to be closed at 35,725.87

Companies commencing Ex-Dividend Trading Today (ASX 300):

ARB Corporation Limited

Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd