Wall Street ticked lower on Wednesday after the midterm election results came in tighter than expected. It was widely predicted that a “red wave” of Republican victories would be announced after Tuesday’s vote, however early results are showing the Democrats are performing better than expected in the poll, with the control of congress still hanging in the balance. The Dow Jones closed the midweek session 1.5% lower, the S&P500 fell 1.68% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2.12%.

Over in Europe markets closed lower as global investors await the final outcome of the midterm US election. The STOXX600 closed 0.3% lower, Germany’s DAX ended Wednesday’s session down 0.16%, the French CAC fell 0.17% and in the UK the FTSE100 closed 0.14% lower on Wednesday. European markets are still being moved by earnings season with Germany’s second biggest bank Commerzbank reporting yesterday that its net profit dropped by 52% in the third quarter and the company maintained its full-year profit outlook despite soaring inflation in the country.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session the SPI futures are expecting the ASX to open 0.64% lower on the back of the global sell-off overnight
• On the commodities front, it’s a red run across the board this morning with crude oil trading 3.44% lower at US$85.85 per barrel, brent oil is down just over 3% at US$92.48 per barrel, gold is down 0.34% at US$1706.74 and iron ore is up 2.82% at US$91 per tonne.
• Taking a look at economic data out today, it’s a data dump on Australia’s building front with building permits data for September out at 11:30am AEDT and private house approvals data also out just before lunchtime.
• The Aussie dollar has weakened to buy 64.31 US cents, 56.35 British pence, 94.26 Japanese yen and 1 New Zealand dollar and 9 cents.

Trading Ideas:

• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on The Lottery Corporation (ASX:TLC) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 35-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $4.47 to the range of $4.78 to $4.86 according to standard principles of technical analysis.
• Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on Ridley Corporation (ASX:RIC) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 49-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $2.14 to the range of $1.81 to $1.87 according to standard principles of technical analysis.