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Wall St closed lower overnight as traders start to look ahead to the release of key US inflation data. The Dow Jones fell 0.86%, the S&P 500 closed 0.6% lower and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped over 1%. In terms of economic data, GDP growth data quarter on quarter was released, coming in at 1.3%, 0.3% lower than the forecast of 1.6%.

In terms of US stocks, Salesforce had its worst session since 2004, dropping 19.7% after missing revenue expectations for the fiscal quarter and providing a week outlook.

Over in Europe, markets closed higher overnight despite gloomy global sentiment. The STOXX600 ended the trading day 0.63% higher with most sectors closing in the green including telecom stocks which rose 1.6%. Germany’s Dax rallied 0.13%, the French CAC closed over half a percent higher and over in the UK the FTSE100 ended Thursdays trading session 0.59% in the green.

Locally yesterday, the ASX200 ended the day falling nearly half a percent, led by the materials and utilities sectors which fell 1.86% and 1.43% respectively. This was offset by the consumer discretionary sector which gained 0.74% by the closing bell yesterday.

What to watch today:

• The Australian share market is set to open higher, with the SPI futures suggesting a rise of 0.65% by market open this morning.
• In terms of economic data,
  • US core inflation data month on month for April is to be released on Friday with a consensus of 0.3%, the same as its previous period.
• On the commodities from this morning,
  • Oil is trading 1.74% lower at 77 US dollars and 85 cents a barrel as markets assessed fresh data ahead of the OPEC+ meeting this weekend.
  • Gold is trading 0.21% higher at 2343 US dollars an ounce and iron ore is trading 0.05% higher at 117 US dollars and 74 cents a tonne.

Trading Idea:

• Bell Potter maintains a speculative buy rating on HighCom Limited (ASX:HCL) and has an unchanged valuation of $0.35. The speculative buy rating is maintained by Bell Potter as HCL expects FY24 revenue to be between $46m-$48m, which would imply second half of 2024 revenue of $31.1m-$33.1m which would be a significant improvement on the first half of 2024 result, hence the speculative buy rating is maintained.