10th October 2022
Morning Bell - Sophia Mavridis
Our local market closed 0.8% lower on Friday, dragged down by the real estate, tech and materials sectors, while energy was the only sector to close in the green. It was oil and gas exploration company Karoon Energy (ASX:KAR) that pushed the sector higher, while other stocks that made solid gains included Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC), Allkem (ASX:AKE) and Imugene (ASX:IMU).
The most traded stocks by Bell Direct clients were IPH (ASX:IPH), Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC) and Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN).
US equities tumbled following a strong US jobs report that pointed to rate hikes. The US unemployment rate for September declined further, to 3.5%. Now while this was as expected, markets consider what this means for the Fed, and a falling unemployment rate sparks a jump in rates, which weighed on stocks. The 2-year Treasury yield rose 6 basis points. And the three major benchmarks dropped. The Dow Jones closed more than 2% lower, or 600 points. The S&P500 down 2.8% and the Nasdaq sharply fell 3.8%.
What to watch today:
- The SPI futures are suggesting the Australian market will drop 0.9% at the open this morning.
- We may see selling of tech stocks today, following the Nasdaq’s drop of almost 4%. So watch tech companies such as Block (ASX:SQ2) and Xero (ASX:XRO).
- In commodities, the price of oil has jumped more than 5%, to a nearly 5-week high, and is trading above US$93 per barrel. OPEC agreed to cut production by 2 million barrels per day, or about 2% of global supply from November. Energy producers will be on watch today, including Santos (ASX:STO) and Woodside Energy (ASX:WDS).Iron ore is trading flat, while the strong US jobs data has put pressure on the gold price, which has dropped almost 1%. So, watch gold miners today.
Trading Ideas:
- Bell Potter maintain a Speculative Buy rating on Frontier Digital Ventures (ASX:FDV) with a valuation of $1.23. At its current share price of $0.67, this implies 82.2% share price growth in a year.
- Trading Central have identified a bearish signal in Ten Sixty Four (ASX:X64), indicating that the stock price may fall from the close of $0.60 to the $0.47 to $0.49 over 24 days according to the standard principles of technical analysis.