Morning Bell 31 July

Yesterday, the S&P 500 snapped its six-day winning streak to close lower. Real Estate was the best-performing segment, up 1.7%, supported by lower bond yields with the 10-year Treasury yield down 9 basis points as the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey indicated a slowing US labour market.

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell signalled that the Fed won’t be cutting rates yet, as the central bank assesses the impact of the higher tariffs on inflation.US equities closed mixed overnight. The S&P500 gave up earlier gains to close 0.12% in the red. The Dow Jones also closed in the red, losing 170 points or 0.38%, while the Nasdaq gained 0.15%. This morning, S&P500 futures rose after quarterly updates from Microsoft and Meta beat expectations.

European markets were mostly in the green. Germany’s DAX up 0.19%, France’s CAC up 0.06%. The FTSE100 was flat, just 0.01% in the green, while the STOXX600 closed just 0.02% in the red.

 What to watch today:

• The Australian market is set to open lower, with the SPI futures suggesting a 0.24% drop at the open this morning.
• Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) shares will be on watch this morning as the mining giant just released its half year results. With weakness in iron ore, RIO reported a slight increase in consolidated sales revenue to US$26.87 billion, however also reported a 16% drop in underlying earnings to US$4.8 billion. This led to the miner cutting its interim dividend by 16% to US$1.48 per share. Its NYSE listed shares tumbled 4.5% overnight, so keep watch of RIO today.
• Looking at commodities price movements overnight,
   
  • Crude oil has advanced 1.5%, current trading at US$70.27 per barrel, holding at a five-week high, supported by supply concerns after President Donald Trump pressured Russia with a shortened timeline to end the conflict in Ukraine. 
  • The price of gold has fallen 1.4% to US$3,278.74 an ounce, hitting one-month low, after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady at 4.25% - 4.5%. 
  • Iron ore is steady at US$99.07 per tonne.

Trading ideas:

• Bell Potter maintain a Buy rating on Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) with a $2.00 price target. The current share price is $1.73, implying 16% share price growth in a year.
• And Trading Central have identified a bearish signal in Appen (ASX:APX) indicating that the stock price may fall from the close of $0.95 to the range of $0.82 - $0.86, over 23 days, according to the standard principles of technical analysis.