Over in the US today, stocks closed higher as investors digested Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech to gain insight into just how long the Fed will continue raising interest rates to tackle inflation in the US. Jay Powell once again made dovish comments in his speech, reassuring markets that the disinflationary pressures have begun, particularly in the goods sector, while also saying that the Fed has the strategy in place to bring down inflation to its target 2%. At the same time, Jay Powell acknowledged the robust January jobs report but mostly shrugged it off.

Stocks recovered from an early sell-off after Powell’s speech, with the Dow Jones closing Tuesday’s session up 0.8%, the S&P500 adding 1.29% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 1.9%.

US trade balance data for December was also released yesterday showing the US trade deficit widened to US$67.4bn in December, the lowest level since September 2020, and down from US$61bn in November. Exports in the region fell 0.9% for the month while imports rose 1.3%.

In Europe, markets closed mostly lower as investors look to the latest slew of economic data and interest rate outlook. The euro zone PMI index showing business activity in a single currency returned to growth in January for the first time in 6-months, while the US jobs report last Friday came in much stronger than expected. Germany’s DAX fell 0.16%, the French CAC fell 0.07% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 rose 0.36%.

On the commodities front, oil is trading 3.5% HIGHER at US$76.71/barrel, gold is down 0.51% at US$1877.39/ounce and iron ore is down 0.8% at US$125.50/tonne.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session here in Australia, the ASX is poised to open 0.46% higher following the rally on Wall St overnight.
• The Aussie dollar is buying 69 US cents, 90.99 Japanese Yen, 57.24 British Pence and 1 New Zealand dollar and 10 cents.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has maintained a buy rating on luxury online fashion retailer Cettire (ASX:CTT) following the release of the company’s first half results yesterday. For the half, Cettire reported sales revenue of $187.7m, up 65% on the PCP and a strong start to the second half with 80% sales revenue increase in January. Bell Potter has also increased its price target on Cettire to $2.40 from $2.30 on the belief that Cettire will continue to outperform its peer group consisting of global luxury retailers and local e-commerce players given its less than 1% market share in a large and growing market which could remain more resilient than other discretionary categories.
• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Medibank Private (ASX:MPL) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 74-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $3.03 to the range of $3.21-$3.25 according to standard principles of technical analysis.