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Wall St closed higher on Friday following the release of quarterly results from Meta which topped expectations. The Dow Jones closed 0.35% higher, the S&P 500 ended the day up, just over one percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rallied 1.74%.

US unemployment data was released on Friday, with it staying steady at its previous result of 3.7%, 0.1% lower than the consensus of 3.8%.

The US 10-year treasury yield jumped 4.02% after the US government announced that 353,000 jobs were added to the US economy.

Over in Europe, markets closed mix as investors react to a surprisingly strong US jobs report. The STOXX 600 closed flat with auto stocks leading gains at 1.1% whilst oil and gas stocks fell 1.4%. Germany’s DAX closed 0.35% in the green, the French CAC rose 0.05% and over in the UK the FTSE100 ended the day 0.09% in the red.

Locally on Friday, markets closed 1.47% higher to end the trading week, led by strong results from the real estate and information technology sectors which saw rises of 3.27% and 3.13% respectively. This was slightly offset by the utilities sector which lost 0.41% by the closing bell.

What to watch today:

• The Australian share market is set to open lower, with the SPI futures suggesting a fall of 0.7% at the open this morning.
• On the commodities front this morning,
  • Oil is trading 2.09% lower to 72 US dollars and 28 cents a barrel as uncertainty in China’s economic recovery adds to the downward pressure.
  • Gold is trading down 0.75% to 2039 US dollars an ounce after strong US jobs data dampens bets an early rate cut.
  • And iron ore is trading up 0.38% to 133 US dollars and 50 cents a tonne.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter maintains a buy rating on Nufarm (ASX:NUF) and has slightly increased its 12-month price target to $6.35. Bell Potter maintains its buy rating as Nufarm is trading at a discount to its global peer group, despite delivering stronger revenue growth rates and having exposure to high growth ESG friendly revenues in biofuels and sustainable omega-3 oils.
• And Trading Central has identified a bullish signal in Helloworld Travel (ASX:HLO), indicating that the stock price may rise from the close of $2.51 to the range of $2.69-$2.73, on a pattern formed over 44 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.