Fears of a government shutdown prompted Wall St to close mostly lower on Friday to end the worst month of 2023 on the NYSE. The Dow Jones fell 0.5%, the S&P500 lost 0.27% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.14%. In early trade on Friday’s session, all three key indices were trading higher as investors welcome the latest personal consumption expenditures price index reading of a 0.1% rise in August and up 3.9% annually. Economists were polling a 0.2% rise for August in the data the federal reserve monitors closely as a key reading of inflation. The sell off in afternoon trade was spurred on by investor concerns of a potential government shutdown following the House GOP leaders failing to pass a short-term spending bill on Friday.

Over the month of September, the Dow Jones fell 3.5%, the S&P500 shed 4.9%, and the Nasdaq dropped 5.8%.

Over in Europe, markets closed higher on Friday driven by a rally for technology stocks in the region. The STOXX600 added 0.5% on Friday, Germany’s DAX rose 0.41%, the French CAC added 0.26%, and in the UK, the FTSE100 gained 0.08%. Eurozone inflation data was the driver of the rally in Europe on Friday with the latest reading coming in at 4.3% for September, its lowest level since October 2021.

Despite the positive session on Friday, the markets in Europe reported their worst quarter of 2023.

Locally on Friday the ASX200 rose 0.34% driven by the materials sector adding 1.22% while consumer discretionary stocks rose almost half a percent. Core Lithium was the winning stock of the session, soaring over 19% after the lithium miner released its first full-year profit as a lithium producer with revenue of $50.6m and profit of $10.8m for FY23.

Liontown Resources on the other hand fell 1.3% on Friday after the miner lifted the estimated capital costs on its Kathleen Valley Lithium project to $951m which is a jump from the $895m estimate announced in January.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session here in Australia the SPI futures are expecting the ASX to open the Monday’s session down 0.54% to start the new trading month lower.
• AU$1.00 is buying US$0.64 cents, 96.19 Japanese Yen, 52.46 British Pence and NZ$1.07.
• On the commodities front this morning oil is down 1% at US$90.79/barrel, gold is down 0.88% at US$1848.19/ounce and iron ore is flat at US$119.50/tonne.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has slightly decreased the 12-month price target on Nufarm (ASX:NUF) from $7.00 to $6.75 and maintain a buy rating on the leading supplier of agricultural chemicals, seeds and treatments globally, following the release of a brief FY23 guidance update. The company has reduced its FY23 EBITDA guidance to $430m-$440m which is below consensus expectations of $451m amid inventory destocking and North America’s late season creating headwinds in H2FY23. A reversal of these trends in FY24 along with growth beyond yield program are likely to see a reasonable rebound in earnings in FY25-FY26.
• And Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Incitec Pivot (ASX:IPL) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 10-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $3.14 to the range of $3.35 to $3.39 according to standard principles of technical analysis.