Wall St closed higher overnight as investors pushed past the trade turmoil earlier on in the week. The Dow Jones gained 0.71%, the S&P 500 rose by 0.39% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped by 0.19%.

Over in Europe, markets closed higher on Wednesday as earnings beats rose stock gains across the major sectors. The STOXX600 rose by 0.47%, with the majority of major sectors closing in the green. Germany’s DAX rallied 0.37%, the French CAC dropped 0.19% and over in the UK the FTSE100 ended the trading day 0.61% higher.

Locally yesterday, the ASX200 rose by 0.51% with most major sectors closing higher. Gains were led by the materials and information technology sectors which closed 1.61% and 1.56% higher. This was offset by the health sector which fell by 0.55%.

What to watch today:

• The Australian share market is set to open higher, with the SPI futures suggesting a rise of 0.7% at market open this morning.
• On the commodities front this morning,
  • Oil is trading 2.03% lower at 71 US dollars and 22 cents a barrel as oil inventories increased by 8.664 million barrels last week, the largest build in nearly a year. 
  • Gold is trading 0.83% higher at 2864 US dollars an ounce and iron ore is trading 0.36% higher at 105 US dollars and 40 cents a tonne.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter maintains a speculative buy rating on Comet Ridge Ltd (ASX:COI) and has a current share price of 13 and a half cents. With a 12-month price target of 21 cents, this indicates a share price growth of 56%, hence the buy rating is maintained.
• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Jumbo Interactive (ASX:JIN), indicating that the stock price may rise from the close of $13.23 to the range of $15.20-$15.70, on a pattern formed over 114 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.