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Wall Street had a choppy final session for the month of February before closing lower on Tuesday as investors digested a slew of economic data and corporate earnings results. Chicago’s PMI fell to 43.6 points for February from 44.3 points in January in another sign the US Fed’s aggressive rate hike stance is having impact across the country. The Dow Jones ended Tuesday’s session down 0.71%, the S&P500 lost 0.1% and the Nasdaq fell 0.3%. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note ticked higher to 3.94% on Tuesday, its highest level since November. Target shares are up over 1.7% on Tuesday after the retail giant released fourth-quarter earnings results that exceeded expectations, while Zoom video Communications is also up over 1.2% after posting a top and bottom line beat for the fourth quarter.

In Europe overnight, hotter-than-expected inflation data out of Spain and France for February caused a sell-off in the region as the data is the latest sign that inflationary pressures are still running high, adding to concerns that the European Central Bank must continue raising rates to get inflation under control. The STOXX600 fell 0.2%, Germany’s DAX fell 0.11%, the French CAC fell 0.38% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 fell 0.74%.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session here in Australia the SPI futures are anticipating the local market to open 0.26% lower.
• In commodities, oil is heading for its fourth straight monthly decline amid stockpiles of the commodity in the US and slower-than-expected demand increase from China post the country reopening. Today, oil is up 1.4% at US$76.76/barrel, gold is up 0.52% at US$1826/ounce and iron ore is down 2.70% at US$126/tonne.
• The highly anticipated Australian GDP growth rate for Q4 is released today which will give an insight into how well the RBA’s attempts have been so far at cooling the stubbornly high inflation down under. The consensus expectation is for a rise of 0.8% following a 0.6% increase in Q3.
• The Aussie dollar is buying US$0.67, 91.68 Japanese Yen, 56.22 British Pence, and NZ$1.09.
• Stocks trading ex-dividend today include Humm Group (ASX:HUM), AMP (ASX:AMP), The Lottery Corporation (ASX:TLC) and Telstra Group (ASX:TLS). If you’ve been thinking about these stocks it might be worth buying in today as stocks trading ex-dividend generally trade lower on the ex-dividend date.

Trading Ideas:

• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Resolute Mining (ASX:RSG) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 18-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $0.24 to the range of $0.31 to $0.33 according to standard principles of technical analysis.
• Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on Westpac Banking Group (ASX:WBC) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 99-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $22.53 to the range of $20.50 to $20.90 according to standard principles of technical analysis.