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Wall Street closed higher on Friday, extending on the November rally among equities in the US with each of the key indices posting a gain for a third straight week. The rally on Friday extended from the prior sessions on the back of softer-than-expected inflation data being released, boosting investor hopes that further rate hikes will be off the table. The Dow Jones added 0.01% on Friday while the S&P500 rose 0.13% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.08%.

Shares in clothing retailer Gap soared 30% on Friday, a day after the company posted better-than-expected results for the third quarter. While on the other end of the market, EV charging network ChargePoint tanked 35% after the company announced a change up to its product suite and cut forecast for third-quarter revenue.

Over in Europe, markets closed higher on Friday following the release of eurozone inflation data indicating a sharp slowdown, with October’s YoY inflation reading coming in at 2.9% compared to 4.3% in September. The STOXX600 rose 1%, Germany’s DAX added 0.84%, the French CAC added 0.91%, and, in the UK, the FTSE100 rose 1.26% boosted by a 0.3% decline in retail sales figures to the lowest level since early 2021.

Locally on Friday, the ASX200 fell 0.13% as a sharp decline in the price of oil sparked a sell-off in energy stocks, with the sector ending the day down 1.6%. Industrials and tech stocks offset some of the session’s heavy losses with 0.45% and 0.43% gains respectively.

Gold miners rallied on Friday on a rise in the price of the precious commodity, with Northern Star Resources, Evolution Mining and Bellevue Gold each rising over 3%.

Telix Pharmaceuticals and NextGen Energy were two beneficiaries of the Sohn Hearts & Minds Conference last week after industry experts said the healthcare stock and uranium stock were undervalued and the top stock pick, respectively at the conference.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session here in Australia the SPI futures are expecting the local market to open the new trading week 0.4% higher.
• On the commodities front this morning, oil has rebounded to trade 4.1% higher at US$75.89/barrel, gold is down 0.04% at US$1980.01/ounce and iron ore is down 0.38% at US$132.50/tonne.
• AU$1.00 is buying US$0.65, 97.40 Japanese Yen, 52 British Pence and NZ$1.09.
• Stocks trading ex-dividend today include Silk Laser Australia and Tamawood. If you’ve been thinking about these stocks, it might be worth considering buying in today as stocks trading ex-dividend generally trade lower on the ex-dividend date.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has increased the 12-month price target on GrainCorp (ASX:GNC) from $9.45 to $9.55 and maintain a buy rating on the leading Australian grain facilitation company following the release of the company’s FY23 results including underlying NPAT slightly above Bell Potter expectations at $268.9m, revenue up 5% to $8.23bn which topped Bell Potter expectations and lease adjusted operating cash inflow of $534.6m, which is above the inflow of $407.1m in FY22.
• And Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on ClearView Wealth (ASX:CVW) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 278 days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $0.58 to the range of $0.69 to $0.71 according to standard principles of technical analysis.