US markets closed sharply lower again on Thursday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that hopes for a policy pivot were ‘premature’ after the central bank delivered a fourth consecutive 75-basis point rate hike on Wednesday. The S&P500 fell 1.1%, the Dow Jones lost 0.5% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq took the biggest hit, closing the session down 1.7%. Despite the tech sell-off, shares in creative marketplace Etsy rallied 15% on Thursday after the company released quarterly earnings results that beat market expectations. US investors now shift focus to the important jobs data out today, with the market expecting an increase of 190,000 jobs to payrolls in October. Should the figures come in at 190,000 it would indicate the tight labour market in the US remains as demand of jobs continues to well outweigh supply of available workers across the nation.

Over in the UK, investor sentiment was also dampened by the Bank of England following in the US footsteps by also raising the UK’s interest rate 75-basis points yesterday. Despite the rate hike, the FTSE100 rose 0.62% on Thursday. In Europe, the sell-off from Wednesday continued with Germany’s DAX falling almost 1%, the French CAC dropping 0.54% and the STOXX600 closing down 0.93%.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session, the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX to open 0.35% lower on the back of the Wall Street sell-off overnight.
• In commodities this morning, crude oil is trading 2.05% lower this morning at US$88.15 per barrel, brent oil is trading 1.79% lower at US$94.45 per barrel, gold is also trading 0.29% lower at US$1630.10 per ounce and iron ore is flat at US$81.50 per tonne.
• The Aussie dollar has weakened overnight to buy 62.94 U.S. cents, 55.91 British Pence, 93.33 Japanese Yen and 1 New Zealand dollar and 9 cents.

Trading Ideas: 

• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Galan Lithium (ASX:GLN) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 8-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $1.61 to the range of $2.04 to $2.14 according to standard principles of technical analysis.
• Trading Central has also identified a bearish signal on Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (ASX:BEN) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 23-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $8.99 to the range of $7.40 to $7.70 according to standard principles of technical analysis.