An uncertain week continues on Wall Street. The three major benchmarks closed higher overnight. It was a slow session however with traders a bit hesitant to make big moves. Traders are cautious ahead of Friday night in the US, when we’ll receive a monthly update on inflation which of course is highly anticipated as inflation is currently one of the key drivers of markets. And on Friday Jerome Powell, the head of the central bank will also deliver a speech, which could have an impact on the market’s performance next week. 

What to watch today:

• The SPI futures are suggesting the Australian market will rise 0.48% at the open this morning. 
• In commodities, 
  • The price of oil is trading almost 2% higher and crude futures have hit the highest levels in three weeks, due to the concerns about tight supply. Crude oil is still down about 25% from the peak in June, as monetary tightening we’re seeing globally right now is creating concerns of an economic slowdown, which would dampen consumption as major central banks stem demand with rate hikes. Watch Santos (ASX:STO) and Woodside Energy (ASX:WDS) today. 
  • Gold is trading higher, moving away from the near 4-week low reached earlier in the week,
  • Iron ore has rebounded, regaining some of its earlier losses.
• Reporting season wise, travel stocks will be on watch, with a few big travel names set to publish earnings, including Air New Zealand (ASX:AIZ), Flight Centre (ASX:FLT), and Qantas (ASX:QAN). And other big names reporting today include South32 (ASX:S32), Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS), Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) and Woolworths (ASX:WOW). Company results continue to be the main driver for price movements this month, based on if earnings are above or below expectations. 
• Companies going ex-dividend today, which may cause their prices to fall as investors take their profits include Baby Bunting (ASX:BBN), Codan (ASX:CDA), Deterra Royalties (ASX:DRR), JB Hi-Fi (ASX:JBH) and REA Group (ASX:REA).  

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter maintain a Speculative Buy rating on De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG), which is due to release the Pre-Feasibility Study on its 100%-owned Mallina Gold Project in the current quarter. The broker’s valuation is $1.80, and at DEG’s current share price of $0.93, this implies 93.5% share price growth in a year. 
• Trading Central have identified a bullish signal in Champion Iron (ASX:CIA), indicating that the stock price may rise from the close of $5.34 to the range of $6.10 to $6.25 over 36 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.