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The Australian market rebounded sharply from yesterday’s sell-off to close Thursday’s session 1.77% higher, boosted by investors piling into the tech and materials sectors today.

Investor confidence was boosted by a rebound in commodity prices and RBA Governor Philip Lowe’s speech, where the RBA leader gave clarity and certainty around the slower way forward in terms of rate hikes. Mr Lowe said there are at least two more rate hikes to come in order to tame the country’s inflation to the target range between 2-3%, and that the RBA thinks the neutral cash rate is at least 2.5%. Australia’s trade balance for July released today showed the country’s trade surplus more than halved in July to $8.73 billion, which fell well short of market expectations for a $14.5 billion surplus. Exports fell 9.9% in the month due to a sharp fall in sales of metal ores and minerals.

Today’s winning stock was Tyro Payments (ASX:TYR), surging more than 28% after the fintech company rejected a takeover bid worth $658 million from a Potentia Capital-led consortium. Tyro’s board considered the indicative proposal and unanimously determined the offer significantly undervalues Tyro and as such advised it is not in the best interest of shareholders to proceed with this offer in its current form. And it was a tech sector surge today with technology stocks posting the biggest gains of the session. Life360 (ASX:360) soared over 15%, while Megaport (ASX:MP1) added more than 12%.

On the losing front, Alumina (ASX:ALU) took the biggest hit today, closing the session down over 2.4%, while Medibank Private (ASX:MPL) and Chorus (ASX:CNU) each fell over 1%.

The top traded stocks by Bell Direct clients today were the BetaShares Geared Australian Equity Hedge Fund (ASX:GEAR), CSL Limited (ASX:CSL) and Lake Resources (ASX:LKE).

In economic data, initial jobless claims in the US for the last week will be released overnight with the market expecting a jump in claims to 240,000. Investors will also keep a close eye on any further hawkish signals on the monetary policy front when Fed Chair Jerome Powell speaks at Cato Institute Conference overnight.