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The local market dipped 0.72% on Friday, ending the recent rally, as investors await the RBA’s interest rate decision for December out on Tuesday this week. The gold miners had a run on Friday as investors piled into gold stocks on the back of a rise in the price of the precious commodity, while investors fled REIT stocks in anticipation of the RBA’s latest rate hike announcement on Tuesday. REIT stocks have faced a tough run in 2022 as every interest rate hike implies further dent into real estate company balance sheets.

The winning stocks on Friday were led by St Barbara (ASX:SBM) jumping 10.40% amid the rising price of gold, while Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) and Silver Lake Resources (ASX:SLR) each added just over 8% and 7% respectively at the closing bell on Friday. On the losing end, Corporate Travel Management (ASX:CTD) fell 5.85% on Friday despite no price sensitive news out of the travel company on Friday. Meanwhile IPH (ASX:IPH) and Charter Hall (ASX:CHC) each also fell 5.15% and 5.13% respectively to close out the week.

The most traded stocks by Bell Direct clients on Friday were Karoon Energy (ASX:KAR), Alcidion (ASX:ALC) and Fortescue Metals Group (ASX:FMG).

Wall Street also finished the last trading session of the week mixed across the key indices as non-farm payrolls data for November was released, coming in a lot stronger than expected which leaves the door open for the Fed’s to consider continued aggressive interest rate hikes to tackle the red-hot inflation in the region. The Dow Jones added just 0.1%, the S&P500 was unchanged and the Nasdaq fell 0.18%. Nonfarm payrolls data for November showed the US economy added 263,000 jobs for the month which beat consensus expectations for an increase of 200,000. While this is just one market report, it comes at a time where there was also a recent upside surprise on wage growth and weakening participation rate. Wages growth in inflation is a bad thing as wages are a large share of company costs, so when wages rise companies continue raising prices to counter the wage cost increase on finances. Investors and the market will now shift focus in the US to the upcoming CPI data for November out on December 13.

Over in Europe, stocks closed mixed across the European markets as investors react to US jobs data and the ongoing debate around a price cap on Russian oil. Oil and Gas stocks led losses across markets after the EU tentatively agreed to a $60/barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil according to Reuters. Germany’s DAX closed Friday’s session 0.27% higher, while the French CAC fell 0.17% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 fell just 0.03%.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading session here in Australia, the SPI futures are expecting the market to recover from Friday’s sell-off to open 0.26% higher.
• Taking a look at commodities to start the week, it’s a red start across the board with Crude Oil trading down 1.53% at US$79.98 per barrel, natural gas is down 7.53%, gold is down 0.31% at US$1797.35 per ounce but iron ore is up 1.43% at US$106.50 per tonne.
• The Aussie dollar has strengthened to buy 67.9 US cents, 91.28 Japanese Yen, 55.35 British Pence and NZ$1.06.
• In terms of economic data out today, local investors will be keeping an eye out for Australia’s global services PMI final data for November, and company gross profits for the third quarter.

Trading Ideas:

• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on Red 5 (ASX:RED) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 48-days which is roughly the same time the share price may rise from the close of $0.20 to the range of $0.23 to $0.24 according to standard principles of technical analysis.
• Bell Potter has maintained a buy rating on IPD Group (ASX:IPG) but has increased the price target from $2.25 to $3.35 following a new cyclical trend noticed in demand for electrification which IPD Group is well positioned to benefit from the growth trend in electrification. Bell Potter notes Europe has seen a 15% market growth per annum over the last two years in demand for electrification, which is believed that Australia is now approaching a similar inflexion point.