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On Wall St, stocks closed lower on Friday but higher across the key indices for the week as investor sentiment was boosted by a rate pause out of the fed, encouraging inflation data and ongoing strength in the technology sector which saw the Nasdaq rise 3.3% for the week, marking an eight-week winning streak. The Dow Jones added nearly 1.3% for the week and the S&P500 rose 2.6% on the week. Software giant Adobe rose 0.9% on Friday after beating expected results and issuing upbeat earnings guidance, while Virgin Galactic rose 13% after announcing on Thursday that it will launch its first commercial space tourism flight this month.

Over in Europe, markets closed higher on Friday as investors digested the latest monetary policy decision out of the European Central Bank in the form of a 25-basis point rate hike for the month ahead. ECB president Christine Lagarde said they are not thinking about pausing yet. Germany’s DAX rose 0.41% on Friday while the French CAC added 1.34% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 rose 0.19%.

The local market jumped over 1% on Friday led by a 3.5% surge in the energy sector led by Whitehaven Coal rallying over 8%, while Santos added 4.1% and Woodside Energy jumped 3.5%.

AGL Energy was the winning stock of Friday’s session after the electricity and gas provider released a guidance update on Friday revealing it expects underlying profit for 2023-2024 double with an expected increase between $580m and $780m, which is a significant jump from the guidance issued this year of between $255m and $285m. The strong profit guidance is driven by higher wholesale power prices and improved power plant operations.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session here in Australia, the SPI futures are anticipating the local index to open the first trading session of the week down 0.04%.
• On the commodities front this morning, oil is trading 0.48% lower at US$71.44/barrel, coal is down 5.52% at US$128.45/tonne, uranium is up 4.05% at US$57.75/pound, gold is down 0.03% at US$1957/ounce, and iron ore is up 0.43% at US$117/tonne.
• There is no local economic data out today however investors will be awaiting the release of the RBA’s latest meeting minutes out tomorrow which will give an insight into how hawkish or dovish the RBA are regarding interest rate hikes over the coming months.
• AU$1.00 is buying US$0.69 cents, 97.55 Japanese Yen, 53.75 British Pence and NZ$1.10 dollar.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has downgraded the price target on Australian Vintage (ASX:AVG) from 65cps to 50cps and maintain a hold rating on the Australian wine company following the release of a trading update outlining revenue and EBITDAS guidance for FY23 that were broadly in-line with expectations but significantly lower than FY22 as growing conditions worsened during key yield development months earlier in the year. As a result of the conditions, AVG’s company owned and leased crush came in materially below previous guidance, representing a 20% decline on yield vs 2022. The upside for AVG is the company continues to win market share in the premium product segments.
• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Woodside Energy Group (ASX:WDS) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 13-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $35.63 to the range of $38.10 to $38.70 according to standard principles of technical analysis.