Wall Street slipped on Thursday to close lower as another piece of economic data was released coming in stronger than expected. For the month of January, US PPI or producer price index rose 0.7% MoM which is the highest growth in 7-monthsand much higher than market forecasts of 0.4%. Goods prices jumped 1.2%, the largest increase since June 2022. The data is another sign this week that the Fed’s aggressive rate hike stance has had little effect in slowing economic growth over recent months. US retail sales also rebounded sharply in January with the largest jump in almost 2 years, climbing 3% for the month which easily topped analysts’ expectations and add further support for the fed to keep raising interest rates to cool inflation in the US. The Dow Jones fell 1.26%, the S&P500 lost 1.38% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 1.78% on Thursday.

Over in Europe markets closed slightly higher after a choppy session on Thursday as investors digest a slew of economic data released this week giving mixed signals about the Fed’s rate hike pathway moving forward. The STOXX600 rose 0.2%, the French CAC touched an all-time high during the session before retreating to close 0.89% higher, Germany’s DAX added 0.18% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 also rose 0.18%.

What to watch today:

• In commodities oil is trading 0.19% lower at US$78.44/barrel, gold is up 0.29% at US$1841.43/ounce and iron ore is up 1.61% at US$126.50/tonne.
• The Aussie dollar is buying US$0.69, 92.22 Japanese Yen, 57.10 British pence and NZ$1.10.
• Ahead of the local trading session the SPI futures are anticipating the local market to open 0.25% lower.
• Stocks going ex-dividend today include Lendlease Group (ASX:LLC) and Macquarie Group (ASX:MQG). If you have been thinking about these stocks it might be worth considering buying in today as stocks going ex-dividend generally trade lower on the ex-dividend date.

Trading Ideas:

• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Qantas (ASX:QAN) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 32-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $6.57 to the range of $7.25 to $7.45 according to standard principles of technical analysis.
• Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on NRW Holdings (ASX:NWH) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 68-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $2.80 to the range of $2.41 to $2.49 according to standard principles of technical analysis.