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More figures on China's economy out later today, but already the flow of early data suggests still strong growth.

China’s exports and imports jumped in February from a year ago, but there a couple of points that mean the figures are unreliable.

Firstly the rises are from February 2009, which is when demand for Chinese exports and demand from industry for imports, was slashed by the GFC and credit crunch.

Secondly, the Lunar New Year was in January last year, this year it was in February.

China shuts down for more than a week, and the impact of the long break is hard to work out when making comparisons especially when the basis is a very weak month as February was last year (and January as well).

The gulf between Australia and the US has again been underlined. Australia is booming, America is struggling.

And yet the US market jumped nearly 70% in the past year, Australia by just over 50%.

Both were a bit short of the global market index which was up 73%.

Wall Street had its best rise since the days of the depression in the last year;  the market was up 68% from the low on March 9 last year, to yesterday.

That will no doubt please the more than 15 million people out of a job, including the 8.4 million Americans who have lost their jobs since December 2007 and the 38 million people on food aid from State and Federal Governments.

It's only a tiddler of a deal, but the merger announced yesterday between Aurox Resources and Atlas Iron set off a dramatic share price surge for one of the partners.

Aurox Resources shares jumped by more than 170% when trading resumed yesterday in both shares after the proposed merger was revealed.

Aurox shares finished up 172%, or 46.5c to 73.6c. 

Atlas shares were not as enthusiastically supported, they eased,  but then rose in afternoon trading, ending up 10c at $2.31.

Aurox traded at 27 cents when a trading halt was called earlier this week, Atlas at $2.21 before its halt on Monday.

Yesterday the S&P/ASX200 had a very ordinary trading session. The index finished up 0.1 point to close at 4,820.00. The trading day started with the index higher, however when the home lending data was released for the month of February, the market saw a sell-off.

Economists were predicting an increase of 2%. Already, market 'experts' are suggesting that the 7.9% drop in housing finance will prevent the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) increasing interest rates in April.

Overnight in America, the US had a choppy trading session as well. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 2 points to 10,567.33. The major banks in the US were all higher for the day.

Paul Atkinson, deputy head of US Equities at Aberdeen Asset Management suggested "There's probably a little bit of altitude sickness at these levels", referring to the current rally of the US market. He added "Normally you'd think if a market's moved this much, aren't we due for some sort of correction?"

In the UK, the FTSE was higher by 38 points, finishing at 5,640.57. A strong opening in the US, higher commodity prices and China's positive trade data woke the Footsie up from its afternoon slumber.

“Just allow it…just admit it. It doesn’t matter where the inflation comes from. Just let it stay…”

SLASHING the Bank of England’s base interest rate to an historic low of 0.5% was supposed to “rebalance” the economy…tipping it away from galloping consumption towards an export-led recovery.

But all that the Pound’s slump since rates began sinking in March 2008 has done so far, however, is gift a 50% gain to UK gold owners.

“While we were hit with a great recession, we now know that the world has indeed avoided a great depression,” said UK prime minister Gordon Brown at a Reuters press conference in London this morning.

This week we've made a conscious decision not to write about p------y or h-----g. Even though we've come across a few gems worth commenting on. And even though several readers have sent us a couple of choice morsels too.

But, we'll stick to our guns and leave any p------y or h-----g comments until next week.

Anyway, our comments on pay equalisation seem to have set off something of a discussion both on the Money Morning website and in emails we've received to the Money Morning mailbag.

It's an interesting topic so I thought it worth our while having another look at it based on some of the comments we've received.

A few interesting comments include this from 'Zengirl' that was left on the Money Morning website:

"It's overwhelmingly disappointing that the attitudes of men toward equality are no different in the 21st century than they were in the last few. Using the concept of 'competitive advantage' to justify inequality is outrageous and simply cannot be supported in any way. Indeed, if your argument had any weight, then indigenous people (who are paid far less than any of us) would be the most competitive in the labour market!"

Just over two weeks after revealing its 2009 profit and losses (but promising to improve), poker machine group, Aristocrat Leisure has revealed a major board shake-up with three directors to retire. The retirees include current chairman, David Simpson, who will step down once a successor can be found.

That is expected to happen by the end of this year.

Two new directors have already been announced and will be up for election at the AGM next month.

A complicating matter for directors of Aristocrat is that they have to get clearance from gambling control authorities in multiple jurisdictions in Australia, Asia (especially Japan) the US and Europe.

As an example, Mr Simpson was nominated to join the Board in July 2003 and it took seven months to get the necessary regulatory approvals in place by February 2004

Building and housing products supplier, Alesco Corporation saw its shares pounded yesterday after it surprised the market with an after hours profit downgrade on Tuesday evening.< The shares fell more than 31% at one stage, to a day's low of $3.12, where they closed down $1.44 on the day.

The size of the fall approximated the size of the earnings downgrade of 25% to 30%.

That matched the first half earnings fall.

The company downgraded its earnings guidance after ''a much weaker than expected third quarter performance'' that is expected to carry over into the fourth quarter which ends on May 31.

The question is now whether other companies in the sector should also be downgraded (such as GWA International).

The market is up 4. The SFE Futures were up 20 this morning.

Wall Street closed up 3. Highest volume in 2 weeks. The Dow was up 37 at best and down 38 at worst. The NASDAQ hit a new 52 week high. Financials did well again after the European Commission President Romano Prodi said the worst of Greece’s budget crisis is over.

Oil up 89c to $81.38, Gold down $14 to $1108 and the Aussie dollar increased to 91.54c from 91.40c.

In the news today…

    MYER Ltd (MYR) – Interim Result better than expected – Net profit (excluding IPO costs) came in at $115m, up 38% and ahead of the $111.3m analysts expected. They declared a 10.5c dividend and reiterated FY total sales growth guidance. Hasn’t inspired the share price – up 2c to 349c.

    Equinox Minerals (EQN) announced an Full year profit of $195.7m and cash reserves of $109.1m. Price up 4c to 381c.

This informative article is contributed by Michael Yardney.Michael is the Director of Metropole Property Strategists, a best selling Author and one of Australia's leading experts in Wealth Creation through Property.  For more information about Michael visit www.metropole.com.au and www.PropertyUpdate.com.au

Some Risks Ahead for our Property Markets. By Michael Yardney

I have been very upbeat in my last few blogs explaining how we are now at the beginning of a new property cycle, how fortunes will be made by some property investors and how property prices will once again double over the next decade.

Well today I’m going to introduces a word of caution…

You see… a couple of days ago I had a chat with David Cohen, one of the buyer’s agents at Metropole and he said “Michael I don’t like this market, I’m concerned!”