Latest stock market news videos & Morning Bell

US equities tumbled in what was a volatile trading session, as trading resumed overnight following the Labor Day national holiday. Wall Street continued its broad sell-off. The Dow closed over 170 points lower, or 0.6%. The S&P500 fell 0.4% and the Nasdaq closed 0.7% lower, notching its seventh day of losses, its longest since 2016.

The Institute of Supply Management PMI came in stronger than expected. However, investor sentiment has been dampened lately, amid hawkish comments from the Fed, who show no signs of easing up aggressive interest rate hikes.  Also, the court battle between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and social media company Twitter is scheduled for today. In London, shares responded favourably to the news of the new Prime Minister Liz Truss.

Following the RBA’s cash rate hike yesterday, the national currency has struggled to gain momentum, with one Aussie dollar buying just 68 US cents.

What to watch today:

• The SPI futures are suggesting the Australian market will open 0.54% lower this morning.
• In economic data, today the GDP Growth Rate for Q2 will be released at 11:30am AEST. Year-over-year, the growth rate is expected to rise from 3.3% to 3.5%.
• On the commodities front:
  • Crude oil has slipped more than 2% overnight, amid weaker demand fears and the prospect of rising interest rates, despite OPEC agreeing to cut crude supply by 100,000 barrels per day in October in a bid to prop up oil prices.
  • Iron Ore is trading more than 3% higher at US$101 per tonne
  • Gold is trading flat at US$1,700 per ounce.

Trading Ideas: 

• Bell Potter have re-initiated coverage on Starpharma (ASX:SPL), a Melbourne-based biotech company focussed on dendrimer technology.  The broker has a Speculative Buy rating on the stock with a $1.00 valuation. At its current share price of $0.58, this implies 72.9% share price growth in a year.

Trading Central have identified a bullish signal in Ecograf (ASX:EGR), indicating that the stock price may rise from the close of $0.44 to the range of $0.52 to $0.56, over 16 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.