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The local market ended Friday’s session down 0.76% as every sector aside from consumer staples stocks ended the day in the red, heavily weighed down by a sharp sell-off in technology stocks. The local market suffered its worst trading week since September last week, ending the week down 1.65%, weighed down by a sharp sell-off in real estate and tech stocks.

The winning stocks on Friday were, Imugene Limited (ASX:IMU) rallying 7.41%, while United Malt Group (ASX:UMG) and Johns Lyng Group (ASX:JLG) each added 4.8% and 3.53% respectively. And on the losing end, New Hope Corporation (ASX:NHC) tumbled 8.61% on a fall in the price of coal. News Corp (ASX:NWS) and Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) each fell 6.8% and 6.3% respectively.

The most traded stocks by Bell Direct clients on Friday were Fortescue Metals Group (ASX:FMG), Arafura Rare Earths (ASX:ARU) and the BetaShares Geared Australian Equity Hedge Fund (ASX:GEAR).

Over in the US, Wall St closed mixed on Friday as investor optimism faded on the back of comments made by Fed Chair Jerome Powell about inflation in the region starting to cool but there still being a long way to go in terms of rate hikes to cool inflation to the target range. The Dow Jones rose 0.5% the S&P500 rose 0.22% but the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.61%. Google parent, Alphabet’s, shares fell more than 4% on Friday as investors grow increasingly concerned about the rising competition in the artificial intelligence space, especially from new market entrant, ChatGP.

And in Europe, markets closed lower on Friday as investors in the region also keep a close eye on the US fed’s movements and commentary around further rate hikes to come. UK preliminary fourth-quarter GDP figures were also out on Friday showing the UK economy expanded by 0.01%, narrowly avoiding a recession. The FTSE100 closed Friday’s session 0.36% lower, while Germany’s DAX lost 1.39%, and the French CAC fell 0.82%.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session, the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX to open flat to start the new trading week.
• On the reporting season calendar for today, Beach Energy (ASX:BPT), Endeavour Group (ASX:EDV) and JB HiFi (ASX:JBH) are all set to release first half results.
• In commodities, crude oil is trading 2.13% higher at US$79.72/barrel, coal is down 3.33% at US$218/tonne, gold is up 0.21% at US$1865.38/ounce and iron ore is up 0.4% at US$126/tonne.
• The Aussie dollar is buying US$0.69, 90.96 Japanese Yen, 57.3 British Pence and NZ$1.10.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has downgraded its price target on GrainCorp (ASX:GNC) from $8.25 to $8.00 but maintains a Hold rating on the company following the release of GrainCorp’s recent harvest update ahead of the company’s AGM. The recent update demonstrates receivals are lagging other large crop years, as well as spot Australian canola meal has moved from a premium to a discount compared to Canadian meal.
• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Neometals (ASX:NMT) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 71-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $0.87 to the range of $1.04 to $1.08 according to standard principles of technical analysis.