Wall St closed higher overnight as the Dow Jones secures its 7th winning day up 0.85%. The S&P 500 gained over half a percent and the tech heavy Nasdaq also rallied 0.27%. In terms of US stocks, both Home Depot and Caterpillar led the Dow in Thursdays trading session, rising more than 2% each.

Over in Europe, markets closed higher as positive momentum was gained from a busy week of earnings. The STOXX600 closed 0.2% up by the closing bell with most sectors ending in the green, led by gas stocks rising 0.9%, whilst autos fell 0.9%. Germany’s DAX finished the day over 1% higher, the French CAC rallied 0.69% and over in the UK the FTSE100 ended the trading session 0.33% in the green.

Locally yesterday, the ASX200 closed 1.06% lower with the majority of sectors finishing the day in the red. Losses were led by the consumer discretionary and financial sectors which lost 2.56% and 1.71% respectively. This was offset by the energy sector which gained over half a percent by the closing bell on Thursday.

What to watch today:

• The Australian share market is set to open higher, with the SPI futures suggesting a rise of 0.3% by market open this morning.
• On the commodities front this morning,
   
  • Oil is trading 0.72% higher at US$79.52/barrel after a decline in US crude stockpiles shows a tightening supply. 
  • Gold is trading 1.61% higher at US$2346/ounce as strong over-the-counter market investment, consistent central bank buying and growing Asian demand all gave gold a boost. 
  • And iron ore is trading down 1.77% at US$116.59/tonne.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter maintains a buy rating on Arcadium lithium (ASX:LTM), despite slightly decreasing its 12-month price target to $9.50. The buy rating is maintained by Bell Potter as LTM provides the largest, most diversified exposure to lithium in terms of mode of upstream production, asset locations, downstream processing and customer markets. It is a key large-cap leverage to lithium prices and sentiment, which is expected to improve over the medium term. In supportive markets, LTM’s growth pipeline could see the company more than double production over the next three years, hence the buy rating is maintained.
• And Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on NAB (ASX:NAB), indicating that the stock price may fall from the close of $33.52 to the range of $31-$31.50 on a pattern formed over 56 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.