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Wall St closed lower overnight as investors await for further economic data including unemployment data coming out in Friday’s trading session. The Dow Jones fell over half a percent, the S&P 500 dropped 0.19% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.18%.

US unemployment data for November will be released after local market close tonight with a forecast to maintain at 4.1%, the same as its previous result.

Over in Europe, markets closed higher after the STOXX600 maintained its positive momentum, rising 0.43%.  Banks and travel stocks led gains, both up over 2%, whilst oil and gas stocks dropped 0.35%. Germany’s DAX rose 0.63%, the French CAC closed the day 0.37% higher and over in the UK the FTSE100 ended the day 0.16% in the green.

Locally yesterday, the ASX200 rose by 0.15% with half of the major sectors ending Thursday’s trading session positively. Gains were led by the information technology and the consumer discretionary sectors which gained 1.13% and 1.08% respectively. This was offset by the real estate sector which fell by 1.38%.

What to watch today:

• The Australian share market is set to open lower, with the SPI futures suggesting a fall of 0.24% by market open this morning.
• On the commodities front this morning,
  • Oil is trading 0.03% lower at 68 US dollars and 52 cents a barrel, gold is trading 0.72% lower at 2631 US dollars an ounce and iron ore is trading 0.2% higher at 106 US dollars and 29 cents a tonne.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter maintains a buy rating on Perpetual Ltd (ASX:PPT) and has a 12-month price target of $24.76. The current share price of $21.82 indicates a share price growth of 13.5%, hence the buy rating is maintained.
• And Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on G8 Education (ASX:GEM), indicating that that the stock price may rise from the close of $1.39 to the range of $1.59-$1.65, on a pattern formed over 90 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.