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The local market extended its decline on Tuesday, closing the session down just 0.07% as investor confidence has been dampened in recent days by Fed officials warning that higher interest rate hikes are to be expected despite inflation in the US slowing. Lithium miners took a hit today on the back of a poor trading session on Monday for US lithium stocks despite the price of lithium remaining strong. The decline in lithium stocks today may be due to investors taking profits from the recent rally in lithium stocks, or the market moving away from higher risk stocks amid the expectation for higher interest rate hikes to come in the US despite inflation starting to cool. Core Lithium (ASX:CXO), Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) and Allkem (ASX:AKE) each fell more than 8% on Tuesday.

 The technology sector rallied today, offsetting some of the losses weighing on the market in the REIT and materials sectors.

 The winning stocks of the session today were, Imugene (ASX:IMU) adding 7.7%, Incitec Pivot (ASX:IPL) rallying 5.88% and Elders (ASX:ELD) closing the session up 4.7%. On the losing end, Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) fell almost 16% today amid weakness among lithium stocks and on the back of Macquarie downgrading Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) to a neutral rating. Allkem (ASX:AKE) also lost 12.36% in the lithium sell-off and Sayona Mining (ASX:SYA) closed the day down 9.62%.

 The most traded stocks by Bell Direct clients today were Core Lithium (ASX:CXO), Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) and MSL Solution (ASX:MSL), which rocketed 70% today after announcing it has received and accepted a takeover offer implying an equity value of $119 million.

 All eyes were on the RBA’s meeting minutes from November released today which outlined that the RBA is not ruling out further rate hikes or a pause, it is keeping its options open to address inflation and is not on a set rate hike path.

 On the commodities front today, crude oil is down 4.16% to US$85.175/barrel, natural gas is up 2.31% at US$6.07/MMbtu, coal is up 1.09% at US$330.35/ton, gold is trading down 0.05% at US$1770.94/ounce, and iron ore is up 3.74% at US$97/tonne.

 The Aussie dollar has strengthened to buy 66.96 US Cents, 56.77 British Pence, 94 Japanese Yen and 1 New Zealand Dollar and 10 cents.