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Good Morning, well a positive day is on the cards for this Wednesday hump day as the futures were earlier suggesting a 0.5% lift at the open after U.S. equities throttled ahead overnight on COVID-19 vaccine hopes.

We saw the S&P 500 lift 1.3% but the Dow Jones was up the most 2.1% and the Nasdaq followed 0.9% higher.

Then after the market closed. massive news biotech giant Moderna announced its potential COVID-19 vaccine produced a strong immune response neutralizing antibodies in all of the 45 patients in its early stage COVID-19 human trial.

Now that sent Moderna shares up 12% after hours following the following Moderna was economic recovery stocks like American Airlines, United Airlines, Royal Caribbean all up about 4% each so that means the U.S. futures are now suggesting a lift of 1% when trade resumes this evening.

Now this is red-hot news I guess for some Aussie investors who closely follow what U.S. futures do as they gauge for our sentiment so you could expect or the economic recovery stocks to follow Wall Street’s lead.

Elsewhere, on the commodity front things were positive there as well.

The oil price lifted 1.2% to US$40.76 a barrel ahead of OPEC oil meeting and gold trade steady at US$1,811 an ounce and the iron ore price popped to a new 11 month high putting on 1.3% to US$106.93 and that sent BHP in New York about 3% high.

Now what else to watch today, well following the better than expected business confidence numbers that we saw yesterday, today it’s consumer confidence turn for their data to be released.

So will confidence return to positivity and rise more than expected given the government’s cash handouts and superannuation withdrawals?

Now to three trading ideas well firstly Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC) has been the talk of the town.

Three brokers upgraded the stock overnight starting with Bell Potter they upgraded Whitehaven Coal’s price target to $2.30 implying 51% growth after Whitehaven Coal delivered stronger than expected quarterly results and said it’ll meet its production and sales guidance for this year.

UBS also reiterated Whitehaven Coal as a buy and increased its price target for Whitehaven Coal to $2.70 and thirdly Citi liked what it read about Whitehaven Coal increasing its earnings expectations for the year by 16%.

Now, Secondly according to Trading Central’s charts, AMA Group (ASX:AMA) is on a bullish uptrend and that’s also supported by fundamental research.

Bell Potter backs the vehicle repair and accessory business AMA Group as a buy, recently increasing its price target to $0.85 for AMA Group after the companies successfully renegotiated service agreements with AIG and Suncorp insurance.

Now, AMA Group has continued to generate cash, beating expectations.

That’s also what the market is liking of late yesterday AMA Group shares did close 0.9% lower though to $0.54.

Lastly, looking at Trading Central’s charts again, Michael Hill (ASX:MHJ) shares are suggested to be on a bullish trend too.

Michael Hill is also supported by fundamental research by Citi, which backs the jewellery company as a buy with a $0.45 target.

Now, Citi suggests Michael Hill will benefit from the rise in saving rates from 4% in December to about 15% now, while on the other side consumer discretionary spending was up 0.5% in March and that’s likely to continue to rise into the June quarter and September as well.

Michael Hill trades at 12 times forward earnings ratio, yesterday Michael Hill rose 1.6% to $0.32.

I’m Jessica Amir with Bell Direct, happy trading and stay safe.