On Wall Street on Friday markets ended the week higher in what was the worst week the S&P 500 has had since September. The Dow Jones rose over half a percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.71% and the S&P500 jumped 0.56%.

A US jobs data report was released on Friday, falling below expectations to 151,000 jobs in February, well below the consensus of 170,000 jobs predicted by economists.

Over in Europe, markets closed lower on Friday following investor reactions to tariff implementation over in the US. The STOXX600 fell 0.46%, it’s first losing session of the year. Germany’s DAX dropped 1.75%, the French CAC lost 0.94% and over in the UK, the FTSE100 closed 0.03% lower.

Locally on Friday, the ASX200 closed 1.81% lower with all but one major sector closing in the red. Losses were led by the information technology and real estate sectors which fell by 3.04% and 3% respectively. This was offset by the consumer staples sector which gained 0.35% by the closing bell.

What to watch today:

• The Australian share market is set to open higher, with the SPI futures predicting a rise of 0.87% at market open this morning.
• On the commodities front this morning,
  • Oil is trading over 1% higher at 67 US dollars and 4 cents a barrel as Donald Trump threatened Russia with sanctions if they fail to reach a ceasefire with Ukraine.
  • Gold is trading slightly higher by 0.04% at 2911 US dollars an ounce and iron ore is trading 0.05% higher at 101 US dollars and 29 cents a tonne.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter maintains a speculative buy rating on Southern Cross Gold Consolidated Ltd (ASX:SX2) with a current share price of $3.60. Bell Potter has set a 12-month price target of $4.80, indicating a share price growth of 33.3%, hence the speculative buy rating is maintained.
• And Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on Westpac Banking (ASX:WBC), indicating that the stock price may fall from a close of $30.57 to the range of $26-$26.90 on a pattern formed over 109 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.