Afternoon trading February 25

Thanks @shovel40, @Fiji1, @uncleBuck, @JohnI and morning crew. (And @FXm for the comments this morning. Appreciate your calm and considered contributions here each morning. We need a few level heads to balance the bull-roarers!)

Half-time wrap:
The share market hit a new high as a strong half-year result from Woolworths and a rebound in tech stocks helped investors shrug off an uptick in inflationary pressures.
The ASX 200 was ahead 102 points or 1.13% at the halfway mark, fuelled by a strong half-year result from Woolworths and signs that the AI panic on Wall Street was subsiding.
The index overcame a brief wobble following mid-morning news that underlying annual inflation as measured by the trimmed mean edged up to 3.4% last month from 3.3% in December. Annual headline inflation held steady at 3.8%, defying expectations for a modest cooldown to 3.7%. The dollar rose 0.3% to 70.8 US cents.
The tech sector rallied 5.9% off yesterday's 26-month low after a string of partnerships announced by AI heavyweight Anthropic helped soothe fears that cheap Artificial Intelligence tools will obliterate software-as-a-service companies. Traders piled back into victims of the recent scare, including Life360, WiseTech and Siteminder.
Woolworths surged 11.19% after reporting a 14.4% jump in earnings and a 16.4% increase in profit.
US stocks climbed overnight as software companies rebounded. The S&P 500 firmed 0.77%.

Personal trading: Pip from ERE on the way down. Took CSL for a rebound that took an eternity to get underway and didn't run very far before a trailling stop took me out for a meagre profit. ​