The Australian sharemarket is trading mainly flat in the first half of trade with the All Ordinaries index (XAO) off by 0.1 pct or 3.8 pts to 5015.6. The XAO has been trading above 5000 pts for three straight sessions now.

Concerns that China might have to tighten policy in order to somewhat control inflation saw base metal prices fall overnight, after China's annual inflation change came in at 4.9 pct. Simply put, inflation is a rise in prices of goods and services over a period of time.

The world's largest miner, BHP Billiton (BHP) is around 1.79 pct or 85 cents lower to $46.52 despite posting a stellar profit result of US$10.7 billion this morning prior to the market open. It is important to note that despite today´s pullback, BHP´s share price has still gained just over 5 pct so far in February.

If BHP was a country in its own right, it would rank around 60th place in terms of size. It would place ahead of almost all countries in the African continent, except for South Africa and a few North African countries such as Egypt. It would be almost twice as big as Costa Rica and Kenya and around three times as large as Bolivia. What makes BHP's profit all the more impressive, is that the company has virtually no debt.

One of the world's largest owners of shopping malls, Westfield (WDC), posted a profit of $1.1 billion for the 2010 calendar year, which was broadly in line with expectations today. It is interesting that BHP made more money in one month than WDC made over the whole year, which just shows you the sheer size of the mining giant.

The big four banks are stronger with both Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Westpac (WBC), the best performers. Both banks are trading higher by between 0.75 pct to 1 pct at lunch.

On the economic front, as expected the number of cars sold in January fell close to 2 pct. There were 84,420 cars sold in Australia with 31 pct of all sales occurring in NSW, 28 pct in VIC, 18 pct in QLD, 10 pct in WA, 6 pct in SA and only around 1 pct in TAS, NT and the ACT each. There were around one million new cars sold in Australia during 2010.

Some Asian markets are already trading with Japan's NIKKEI 225 is up 0.39 pct or 42.25 pts to 10788.92, China's Shanghai Composite index is off slightly and Hong Kong's Hang Seng is yet to open for trade.

Out of Asia, the Bank of Japan (BOJ), their central bank, will release their monthly report which provides the statistical data that the BOJ used to come to a decision on interest rates for the month. This is Japan's equivalent to the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) board meeting minutes.

The Australian dollar (AUD) is weaker and has dipped below parity with the US dollar and currently buys US99.87 cents. This is around 0.5 pct lower than this time yesterday.

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