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Wall Street had a negative end to the last trading week after President Donald Trump announced aggressive tariffs against major US trading partners would begin on Saturday. The Dow Jones fell 0.75%, the S&P500 lost 0.5% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended the day down 0.28%. Stocks with exposure to the key trade partners like Mexico, Canada and China posted greater losses on Friday including Mexican Food outlet Chipotle and Corona brewer Constellation Brands. Over the weekend President Trump introduced 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports and an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods, which led Canada to retaliate with a 25% tariff on US goods into Canada.

In Europe on Friday, markets rose to end the week higher following the release of strong earnings results in the region. The STOXX 600 rose 0.13%, Germany’s DAX gained 0.02%, the French CAC added 0.11%, and, in the UK, the FTSE100 ended the day up 0.31%.

Across the APAC region on Friday, markets mostly rose following strength on Wall St on Thursday. Japan’s Nikkei added 0.15%, South Korea’s Kospi Index fell 0.77%, and India’s Nifty 50 added 1.18%, while China’s CSI and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng were both closed for the Lunar New Year.

What to watch today:

• Locally to end the last trading week, the ASX200 post a 0.45% gain on Friday and 1.83% rise for the trading week as a rally late in the week for mining stocks finished off a strong week on the local market. Rate sensitive sectors like tech, REIT and consumer discretionary stocks also had a strong week after inflation data in Australia came in below economists’ expectations and pave the way for the RBA to seriously consider a rate cut in 2 weeks.
• Simonds Group shares had a stellar day on Friday with a rise of 27% after leading Australian home building company agreed to pay $10m for the acquisition of Melbourne-based Dennis Family Homes to increase its new construction builds by 25% next financial year.
• PointsBet on the other hand tumbled over 13% on the release of the company’s quarterly trading update including flat growth in quarterly total net win and negative normalised EBITDA of $3.3m for the first half.
• Ahead of the first trading session of the new week and new month the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX will open the day down 1.19% likely due to investor reactions to the Trump tariffs announced over the weekend.
• On the commodities front this morning oil is trading 0.3% lower at US$72.53/barrel, gold is up 0.04% at US$2797/ounce and iron ore is up 0.26% at US$101.59/tonne.
• The Aussie dollar has further weakened to buy 62.15 US cents, 95.37 Japanese Yen, 50.12 British Pence and 1 New Zealand dollar and 10 cents.
• On the reporting season calendar today, Argo Investments will release results today.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has downgraded the rating on Strike Energy (ASX:STX) from a speculative buy to a speculative hold rating and have a 12-month price target of 27cps on the gas producer following the release of a 2Q trading update outlining production and revenue lower than Bell Potter expected due to maintenance impacting output.
• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Nufarm (ASX:NUF) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 11-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $3.65 to the range of $3.86 to $3.92 according to standard principles of technical analysis.