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Wall St closed mixed on Friday as investors reassessed their positions ahead of the Fed’s anticipated rate cut this week at the final FOMC meeting for 2024. The Dow Jones fell 0.2% to track its 7th straight losing session in the longest red run since 2020, while the Nasdaq gained 0.12% on Friday and the S&P 500 ended the session flat.

Across the European region on Friday, markets closed lower as investors reacted to disappointing economic data readings from the region’s largest economies, with UK GDP showing economic contraction by 0.1% in October, and Germany’s exports declined 2.8% in October. The STOXX 600 fell 0.62% on Friday, while Germany’s DAX, the French CAC and UK FTSE100 each lost around 0.15%.

Across the Asia Region on Friday, markets closed lower as investor optimism for further Chinese stimulus faded. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.83% on Friday, China’s CSI index fell 2.37%, and Japan’s Nikkei ended the day down 0.95%.

The ASX200 fell 0.41% on Friday as sharp selloff in the materials sector weighed on the key index, while financial and energy stocks were the only sectors to end the day higher. The index had its worst week in months last week as investors took profits from the recent rally that sent the ASX200 to record highs.

DigiCo debuted on the ASX on Friday in a highly anticipated debut that had a very disappointing reception from investors. The data centre infrastructure REIT ended its first session at $4.55/share, down from the $5 of its IPO.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of Monday’s trading session on the ASX, the SPI futures are anticipating the local market will begin the new trading week down nearly half a percent.
• On the commodities front this morning, oil is trading 1.81% higher at US$71.29/barrel, gold is down 1.25% at US$2647/ounce and iron ore is down 0.17% at US$105.31/tonne.
• The Aussie dollar has further weakened to buy US$0.63, 97.63 Japanese Yen, 50.41 British Pence and NZ$1.10.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has initiated coverage of Vitrafy Life Sciences (ASX:VFY) with a spec buy rating and 12-month price target of $2.36. Vitrafy aims to become a global leader in cryopreservation by significantly improving cell survival of biological materials. The analyst sees high growth potential in VFY’s three areas of exposure to broad global market themes, each also material in size. Aquaculture & Bovine reproduction, Blood Platelets and Human Cell & Gene Therapy each have global addressable markets over US$3bn in size and have significant growth potential for VFY.
• And Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on Sims (ASX:SGM) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 25-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $12.73 to the range of $11.20 to $11.50 according to standard principles of technical analysis.