Wall St kicked off the festive season with a slide in the first trading session of December, as a broad Cryptocurrency sell off dented general investor sentiment. Flagship currency Bitcoin slumped over 6% to below US$86,000, adding to the over 30% drop in price experienced over the last 2 months from highs of $125,000 in October. The S&P 500 fell 0.4%, the Dow Jones lost 0.7%, and the Nasdaq shed 0.4%. 

It was a relatively stable day across the European markets, with the exception of Germany, where the DAX slid over 1% after monthly manufacturing data came in at a 9-month low, sparking a sell off. Asia saw a mixed day as the Chinese CSI and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.1% and 0.7% respectively, while the Japanese Nikkei slid 1.9%. 

Locally yesterday, the ASX 200 retreated 0.6%, with 8 of the 11 key sectors posting losses. The biggest story on the day however was a technical outage which prevented the ASX from publishing market-sensitive announcements for over 3 hours, causing around 80 companies to be put into a trading halt. 

What to watch today:

• The SPI futures indicate that the ASX 200 will edge slightly up, with a 0.07% gain at the open of trade today. 
• In commodities: 
  • Crude Oil prices are trading up another 1.5% at US$59.45, as Ukraine launched a fresh wave of Drone attacks on Russia denting the potential for peace talks, and OPEC announced its decision to leave output levels unchanged in Q1 2026.
  • Onto precious metals, gold has continued its recent rally and is now trading at a 6-week high US$4,240 per ounce. Meanwhile, Silver is trading just under 3% higher at US$58 per ounce, setting a fresh all-time high in the process. Today’s increase means that the silver price has now hit a 100% year-on-year rise, outpacing Gold. 
  • And finally Iron Ore prices have increased by 2% to just under US$107 per tonne, driven by Chinese demand and a weaker US dollar.

Trading ideas:

• And now we’ll end on some trading ideas for your consideration today. Bell Potter have maintained their Buy rating on healthcare equipment provider Paragon Care (ASX:PGC) with a target price of $0.49 per share, after the company announced the acquisition of Indonesian based provider Haju Medical – expanding their presence into overseas markets. 
• And Trading Central have identified a bullish signal in South32 (ASX:S32), indicating that the price may rise from the close of $3.31 to the range of $3.95 to $4.05 over a period of 45 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.