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Wall Street closed in record territory on Friday as the big banks had a very strong start to the third-quarter earnings season. The Dow Jones added 0.97% to a fresh record 42,863.86 on Friday while the S&P500 gained 0.65% to a fresh record 5815.03 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.33%, just 2% below its record high.

JP Morgan Chase rose 4.4% after topping profit and revenue expectations for Q3 while Wells Fargo rose 5.6% on stronger-than-expected profits.

Over in Europe markets closed higher on Friday as investors assessed key UK growth figures and looked ahead to further key economic data out in the region soon. The STOXX 600 rose 0.53%, Germany’s DAX added 0.85%, the French CAC rose 0.48%, and, in the UK, the FTSE100 ended the day up 0.19%. The UK economy returned to GDP expansion in August with Britain’s GDP rising 0.2% in the month following flat readings in June and July.

Across the Asia region on Friday it was a mixed close as China’s stimulus-fuelled rally lost steam. China’s CSI index lost 2.77%, South Korea’s Kospi Index fell slightly despite the Bank of Korea cutting the benchmark interest rate by 25-basis points in the first rate cut since 2020. Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.57% on Friday and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was close for a public holiday.

The ASX closed 0.1% lower on Friday as a broad sell off across 6 of the 11 sectors weighed on the key index.

Energy stocks rose on Friday on the oil price rebound – which has been the story of the last month with high volatility based on geopolitical tensions escalating and easing.

Capital raisings have been on the rise recently as the impacts of high interest rates and subdued demand finally hit company balance sheets. On Friday we saw Appen return to profitability but also announce a capital raise to expand into AI, while Dubber also announced a $25m capital raise to ‘accelerate sales momentum and execute a new sales strategy’.

Gold miners rallied on Friday due to the rising price of the precious commodity as demand for the safe-haven asset continues to rise.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the first trading session this week the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX to open the new trading day up 0.56% on the back of Wall Street’s rally on Friday.
• On the commodities front this morning oil is trading 0.38% lower at US$75.56/barrel, gold is up 0.91% at US$2657/ounce, and iron ore is up 0.6% at US$106.44/tonne.
• AU$1.00 is buying US$0.67, 100.54 Japanese Yen, 51.63 British Pence and NZ$1.11.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has increased the rating on Catapult Group (ASX:CAT) from a hold to a buy and have raised the 12-month price target on the sports tracking software company from $2.35 to $2.75 ahead of the company’s first half results due out in a month’s time. The key focus for Bell Potter’s analyst in the upcoming results is the performance of the Tactics and Coaching division i.e. the video business from both a revenue and total contract value perspective.
• And Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on SG Fleet Group (ASX:SGF) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 23-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $2.68 to the range of $2.81 to $2.85 according to standard principles of technical analysis.