Australian shares have risen but oil stocks are taking a hit, as the price of Brent crude jumps around on fresh lockdowns in China and potential peace talks for Ukraine.
The ASX 200 rose steadily throughout the day and finished up 0.7 per cent.
That is it's sixth day in a row of trending upwards.
The top-performing stocks included Magellan (+7.1pc) and Appen (6.7pc). Generally, tech and consumer goods stocks were doing nicely.
On the flip side, miners Whitehaven and Iluka Resources were down between 4.2 and 2.1 per cent.
However, oil stock Beach Energy was down 2.1 per cent.
That comes as the price of oil has dropped again as Shanghai heads into fresh rounds of COVID-19 lockdowns, potentially subduing concerns about a shortfall in global supply.
At 7am AEDT, the price of Brent crude had dropped 9.2 per cent, to US$109.60 a barrel. However, it started to recover as more talk emerged of peaces talks for Ukraine and Russia to be held in Turkey.
Its price has been fluctuating to near historic highs with the war in Ukraine. The country that invaded it, Russia, is one of the world's biggest oil producers.
High oil prices have added to inflation concerns globally and hiked prices at the pump, including in Australia.
Trade on Wall Street was generally muted on Monday, but was lifted by a hike in Tesla shares.
The electric car-maker's stock rose 8 per cent after it said it wanted to split its stock to pay a dividend.
That boosted the Nasdaq by 1.3 per cent. The other two majors rose between 0.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent after muted afternoon trade.
Bitcoin gained almost 8 per cent as it continued its recovery.
The Aussie dollar was trading near 74.90 US cents at the US close.
Inflation concerns growing in Australia
Meanwhile, as the price of oil continues to put upwards pressure on inflation in Australia and globally, the latest consumer confidence data from ANZ shows concerns about price hikes are growing.
"Inflation expectations surged 0.4 points last week, to a multi-year high of 6.4 per cent of respondents, even though petrol prices declined slightly," ANZ head of economics David Plank said.
"Consumer confidence was essentially unchanged despite this, with a slight decline of just 0.1 per cent.
"Within the detail, however, sentiment toward 'current financial conditions' dropped to its lowest since May 2020.
"Consumer confidence is very weak, given the strength of employment, which we think is directly linked to concerns over cost-of-living pressures."
It found more respondents were now wanting to put off buying major household items.
Meanwhile, the federal government is expected to unveil a suite of measures aimed at easing cost of living concerns in its budget tonight.
"The Australian federal budget looks set to be a very traditional election budget," ACY Securities chief economist Clifford Bennett said in a briefing note today.
"So much so that market implications will be entirely muted."
