Wall Street closed lower on Wednesday as investor fears of further rate hikes out of the Federal Reserve, strengthened. The Dow Jones closed Wednesday’s session 0.57% lower, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq followed suit, ending the day 0.70% and 1.06% lower respectively. Technology stocks have felt the incoming pressure from potential further rate hikes leading to a negative close across the sector for the third straight day. This was highlighted by Apple and Nvidia which fell by more than 3% each with Amgen and Boeing also fell 2% each.

Over in Europe, markets closed lower on Wednesday as investor focus has shifted to the oil market outlook and inflation concerns in Saudi Arabia and Russia as they each extended voluntary oil cuts until the end of 2023. The STOXX 600 ended the day 0.6% lower, led by households’ goods losing 2.2% and the banks dropping by 1.5%. Germany’s DAX ended the day 0.19% lower with the FTSE100 and the French CAC closing down by 0.16% and 0.84%. Saudi Arabia have extended their oil production cuts by 1 million barrels until the end of December with Russia following suit reducing its oil exports by 300,000 barrels.

Locally yesterday, the ASX200 ended the day 0.78% lower driven by a 1.49% decline in the info tech sector and a 1.35% drop in the communications services sector. However, this was slightly offset by a 0.95% rise in the energy sector.

What to watch today:

• The Australian share market is set to open lower, with the SPI futures suggesting a fall of 0.48% at market open this morning.
• On the commodities front this morning,
  • Oil is up by 0.97% to US$87.55 a barrel, following an increase demand after Saudi Arabia and Russia extend supply cuts until the end of 2023.
  • Gold is down 0.48% to US$1,916 an ounce after being weighed down by a strong dollar and economic uncertainty. 
  • And iron ore is up by 0.85% to US$118.50 per tonne following bets of robust demand for Chinese steel production in the short term. 

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter maintains a buy rating on PointsBet Holdings (ASX:PBH), but has significantly lowered the 12-month price target from $2.10 to $1.08. The reason for the price target decrease is due to the payment of the capital return which will occur on September 22nd and an increase in the number of shares on issue while all other valuation metrics remain the same. Bell Potter believes the value of the business is seen to be too low at $69 million, assuming the payout of 42 cents final distribution and cash of around 11 cents per share hence maintaining the buy rating on the company.
• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on New Hope Corp (ASX:NHC), indicating that the stock price may rise from the close of $5.95 to the range of $7.40-$7.70 on a pattern formed over 130 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.