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Wall St closed higher overnight as the S&P 500 recorded its best quarter since 2019, ending Wednesday’s trading session up 0.86%. The Dow Jones gained 1.22% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed just over half a percent higher.

Over in Europe, markets closed slightly higher after a slow start to the session. The STOXX600 closed 0.1% higher with retail stocks closing higher whilst travel stocks fell 2.4%. Germany’s DAX rallied half a percent, the French CAC ended the trading session a quarter of a percent higher and over in the UK the FTSE100 closed flat, up 0.01%.

Locally yesterday, the ASX200 ended Wednesday’s trading session half a percent higher with all but two sectors ending in the green. Gains were led by the consumer staples and health sectors which gained 1.35% and 1.28% respectively.

In terms of economic news, February CPI data came out yesterday at 3.4%, the same as it previous result and slightly lower than the consensus of 3.5%.

What to watch today:

• The Australian share market is set to open higher, with the SPI futures suggesting a rise of 0.76% at market open this morning.
• On the commodity front this morning,
  • Oil is trading flat at US$81.60 a barrel, following a 9.337 million barrel increase in US crude stockpiles.
  • Gold is trading 0.74% higher at US$2194 an ounce as investors await on  important inflation data to come out of the US.
  • And iron ore is trading 2.71% lower at US$107.50 a tonne.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has maintained a buy rating on Platinum Asset Management (ASX:PTM) and has a 12-month price target of $1.20. The buy rating is maintained by Bell Potter as PTM look to reduce their cost base in FY25 to get annual costs below $78m. This reduction in costs increased EBITDA forecasts by 3.9% in FY24, 15.3% in FY25 and 36% in FY26.
• And Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC), indicating that the stock price may rise from the close of $6.74 to the range of $8.50-$8.90, on a pattern formed over 40 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.