The local market’s rally on Thursday was short lived with the key index closing Friday’s session down 1.23%, down 1.53% for the week, and plunged 7.5% for the month of September amid the global sell-off as recession fears mount in the US. Several policy makers spoke late last week signalling further rate hikes are required for the foreseeable future to cool inflation into the target range.

Nine of the eleven sectors on the ASX closed Friday’s session in negative territory, while Gold mining stocks offset some of the markets sell-off by surging more than 3.5% amid a rise in the price of the precious commodity and on the back of the Bank of England’s decision to buy $65bn pounds worth of UK government bonds to stabilise the UK pound.

The winning stocks on Friday were Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) which added 8.70%, Silver Lake Resources (ASX:SLR) jumped 7.27% and Regis Resources (ASX:RRL) lifted just under 7%. 

On the losing front, Carsales.Com (ASX:CAR) took the biggest hit on Friday, ending the day down 7.8% amid sliding investor sentiment in tech and growth stocks. Cochlear (ASX:COH) also shed 6.6% despite no price sensitive news released by the medical device company, and Wisetech Global (ASX:WTC) fell 5.6% also due to the broad tech sell-off and on the back of global shipping volumes declining, showing slowing growth for the sector Wisetech operates in.

The most traded stocks by Bell Direct Clients on Friday were BetaShares Geared Australian Equity Hedge Fund (ASX:GEAR), Macquarie Group (ASX:MQG) and New Hope Corporation (ASX:NHC).

What to watch today:

• Overseas on Friday, the global market sell-off continued, with US stocks recording the longest run of quarterly declines since the GFC in 2008. The Dow Jones industrial index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed out the third quarter with their heaviest losses of the year, down 1.7% and 1.5% respectively, while the S&P500 notched out its third straight quarterly loss, ending Friday’s session down 1.5%. Investor sentiment has been increasingly dampened of late following the Fed Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes in attempt to cool the nation’s red-hot inflation, that remains stubbornly high.
• Over in Europe, new data released shows the Eurozone inflation rate hit 10% in September as Russian efforts to slim the regions gas supplies drove energy prices higher. Despite European markets ending Friday’s session higher, with Germany’s DAX up 1.16% and the French CAC adding 1.5%, the pan-European STOXX600 had it worst performing month since June, declining 7.8% over September as global markets struggle to overcome investor fears of slowing growth and possible recession.
• The Bank of England intervention-fuelled rally cooled on Friday with the FTSE100 closing Friday’s session just under 0.2% higher for the day amid the global sell-off. Retail stocks in the UK were hardest hit, with Next Chief Executive Simon Wolfson offering some support for the UK government’s tax cut policies, but told the Standard he fears the borrowing costs they will incur.
• Ahead of the local trading day today, the ASX futures are expecting the market to open just 0.08% higher to start the new month in positive territory.
• Taking a look at economic data, investors will be anticipating the release of the RBA’s latest interest rate decision out on Tuesday to determine if the central bank really is committed to lower interest rate hikes, or whether the latest set of aggressive global interest rate hikes will prompt the RBA to follow suit.
• On the commodities front, crude oil has plunged 1.88% to trade at US$79.70/barrel, Brent is down 2.1% to trade at US$85.35/barrel, Gold is trading just 0.01% higher at US$1660.52/ounce while iron ore is down almost 3% at US$98/tonne.
• And to start the new trading week off, let’s dive into some trading ideas for your consideration.

Trading Ideas: 

• Trading