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The Australian market jumped at the open this morning, after the US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed last night that smaller rate hikes could start as early as December. Our market then followed the rally on Wall Street and the ASX200 closed 0.96% in the green.

In economic news, domestic new capital expenditure fell 0.6% for the September quarter.

The materials sector climbed for the second straight day, as commodities rallied overnight. Both Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) and South32 (ASX:S32) posted strong gains, closing 10.5% and 6.7% respectively. Meanwhile the energy sector was the worst performing sector, dragged down by Woodside Energy (ASX:WDS), Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC) and New Hope (ASX:NHC).

Financials were generally higher, with the big four banks adding between 0.3% and 0.8%.

Artificial intelligence company Appen (ASX:APX) jumped today, following  a strong night of trade among tech stocks on Wall Street, with the Nasdaq up more than 3% by the close. Also boosted by the strong session In tech shares was accounting software company Xero (ASX:XRO) and payment company Block (ASX:SQ2). Citi also released a bullish broker note on XRO, maintaining their Buy rating and price target of $97.90. XRO today closed at $75.08.

The comments by the Fed also provoked investors to move back into gold. The All Ords Gold Index (ASX:AXGD) closed 4% higher today, and gold mining stocks such as Evolution Mining (ASX:EVN) posted strong gains.

The most traded stocks by Bell Direct clients today were Telstra (ASX:TLS), Core Lithium (ASX:CXO), Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) and BHP Group (ASX:BHP).

As for economic data out tonight, the US Manufacturing PMI, run by the Institute for Supply Management will be release at 2am local time. This is the US’s version of the monthly economic indicator, based on a survey of purchasing managers at more than 300 manufacturing firms. And the purchasing managers’ index is considered to be a key indicator of the state of the US economy and provides us data on economic trends in the manufacturing sector.

The Australian dollar is firmer, with 1 Australian dollar buying US$0.68, 93.06 Japanese Yen, 55.77 British Pence and NZ$1.08.