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Wall Street closed higher across the key indices on Friday to round out a strong first half of 2023. Technology stocks were once again the driving force behind Friday’s rally, with Nvidia rising 3.6%, Microsoft advancing 1.6% and apple adding 2.3% higher to close above a US$3trn market cap. The Dow Jones added 0.84% on Friday, the S&P500 rose 1.23%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 1.45%, to end its best first half of a year since 1983.

Nike shares fell 2.7% on Friday after the apparel giant posted a weaker-than-expected quarterly profit.

Despite the very strong first half, some of Wall Street expect investors to take profits from the first half rally in the second half amid ongoing volatility and the outlook for interest rates to continue rising alongside the potential threat of a recession.

Over in Europe, markets closed higher on Friday and notched out gains for the first half despite interest rate hikes and the regional banking crisis. Eurozone inflation data for June also released late last week showed a greater-than-expected fall to 5.5% for the month indicating the fiscal tightening of the ECB could be starting to have an impact. On Friday the STOXX600 rose 1.2%, Germany’s DAX added 1.26%, the French CAC rose 1.19% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 rose 0.8%.

Locally, the ASX rose 0.12% to finish the last trading session of the financial year at 7203 points and up 1.47% for the week. Information technology were again the leading stocks on the ASX on Friday, with the sector adding 0.83%, while consumer staples and healthcare stocks were sold off.

Link Administration Holdings (ASX:LNK) tanked almost 14% on Friday after the company provided an update that one of its largest customers, industry superannuation fund HESTA, will not renew its contract when it expires.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session the SPI futures are expecting the ASX to open the first trading session of the new financial year 0.41% higher.
• On the commodities front this morning, oil is trading 0.13% lower at US$70.53/barrel, coal is up 0.12% at US$128.05/tonne, uranium is down 0.53% at US$56.20/pound, gold is up 0.56% at US$1918.82/ounce and iron ore is down 1.73% at US$113.50/tonne.
• Taking a look at economic data out today, Australia’s building permits data for May is released just before midday with the market expecting a rebound in permits through growth of 2%, up from a decline of 8.1% in April. Australia’s home loans data MoM is also out today with the forecast of a 4% rise, from a 3.8% fall in April.
• AU$1.00 is buying US$0.67, 96.15 Japanese Yen, 52.44 British Pence, and NZ$1.09.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has downgraded the price target on Bubs Australia (ASX:BUB) from 22 cents per share to 20 cents per share and maintain a hold rating on the company following the recent revenue guidance statement released by the infant formula company including guidance of $52.5m to $55.7m, which is well below Bell Potter’s previously expected revenue of $60m from the company for FY23. Bell Potter also noted Australian exports of finished IMF to China have remained subdued, down 40% YoY and that Bub’s has a clear challenge of managing excessive inventory positions of the Bub’s Supreme product held by channel partners in China.
• And Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on IGO Limited (ASX:IGO) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 12-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $15.20 to the range of $16.90 to $17.30 according to standard principles of technical analysis.