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The ASX rose just 0.05% yesterday as a rally for technology stocks offset sharp losses for healthcare, materials and real estate stocks. The winning stocks yesterday were led by Xero (ASX:XRO) charging 10.66% after the cloud-based software company announced it is cutting up to 800 of its staff to manage costs. New Hope Corporation (ASX:NHC) and Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC) each added over 5.5% amid the rising price of coal. On the losing end, Imugene (ASX:IMU), and Breville Group (ASX:BRG) each fell over 3% and BrainChip Holdings (ASX:BRN) lost almost 3%.

Wall Street has just closed for Thursday’s session with the market responding negatively to Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell reiterated his comments about the need for the U.S. central bank to keep interest rates higher for longer, on the second day of his testimony to congress. The Federal Reserve chair said that signs of a hotter economy from the start of the year warrant faster rate hikes, prompting investors to believe a 50-basis point rate hike could be lock in for the next month. Next week’s US CPI print remains in focus for investors to gauge if the 50-basis point rate hike could become a reality. The Dow Jones fell 1.66%, the S&P500 fell 1.8% and the Nasdaq lost 2.05%. Powell also say he hasn’t made up his mind about what the central bank will do with regards to rates when it meets later in March.

In Europe, markets closed mostly lower after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell reiterated his comments. Germany’s DAX closed just 0.1% higher while the French CAC fell 0.12% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 fell 0.63%.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX to open 1.11% lower on the back of the Wall St sell-off overnight.
• Taking a look commodities oil is trading 1.27% lower at US$75.69/barrel, gold is up 0.88% at US$1829.50/ounce and iron ore is down again by 0.4% at US$128.50/tonne.
• The Aussie dollar is buying US$0.66, 89.68 Japanese Yen, 55.55 British Pence and NZ$1.08.
• Stocks trading ex-dividend today include Downer EDI (ASX:DOW), WiseTech Global (ASX:WTC), Base Resources (ASX:BSE), and Grange Resources (ASX:GRR). If you’ve been thinking about these stocks, it might be worth considering buying in today as stocks trading ex-dividend generally trade lower on the ex-dividend date.

Trading Ideas:

• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Novonix (ASX:NVX) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 20-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $1.60 to the range of $1.74 to $1.78 according to standard principles of technical analysis.
• Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on Hotel Property Investments (ASX:HPI) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 47-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $3.46 to the range of $3.27 to $3.31 according to standard principles of technical analysis.