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Wall Street rose for a second straight session on Wednesday to record territory as investors shook off geopolitical concerns and bought back into tech stocks. The Dow Jones rose 1.03% to a record close, as did the S&P500 ending the day up 0.71% also to a record close, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.6% at the closing bell. 

The driver of the rally in the US was the release of the Fed’s latest meeting minutes whereby majority of participants favoured reducing interest rates by more than 50 basis points.

Over in Europe overnight, markets closed higher ahead of key rate decisions out later this week and on easing oil prices. The STOXX 600 rose 0.66%, Germany’s DAX added 0.99%, the French CAC rose 0.52% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 ended the day up 0.65%.Across the Asia region on Wednesday it was a mixed session with China’s CSI index snapping a 10-day winning streak with a tumble of 7.05%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.7%, but Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.87% and South Korea’s Kospi Index was closed for a holiday.

The Australian market closed 0.13% higher on Wednesday as a strong tech rally offset sharp declines among materials and energy stocks.

What to watch today:

• The local tech rally was on the back of Wall Street rising overnight back to near record territory. The materials sell off sparking investors to hit the sell-button on the big iron ore miners followed Beijing dampening hopes of more fiscal spending to aid China’s post-pandemic recovery efforts. 
• BHP (ASX:BHP) and Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) fell 1.2% and 2.3% respectively on Wednesday.
• On the Rio Tinto story, the mining giant has become the first mining giant to snap up a large lithium company when it agreed to acquire Arcadium Lithium for US$6.7bn in an all-cash deal announced on Wednesday. While BHP is going hard at expanding into the copper space, Rio Tinto becomes the first major mining player to back the lithium space following years of depressed pricing for the once-loved green commodity.
• Over in New Zealand the RBNZ cut the cash rate by 50bps to 4.75% as inflation returned to the target 1-3%.
• Ahead of Thursday’s trading session on the ASX the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX to open the day up 0.4% tracking Wall Street’s rally overnight.
• On the commodities front this morning, oil is down 0.3% at US$73.36/barrel, gold is down 0.54% at US$2607/ounce and iron ore is down 5.42% at US$106.30/tonne.
• The Aussie Dollar is buying 67.31 US cents, 100.26 Japanese Yen, 51.36 British Pence, and 1 New Zealand dollar and 11 cents.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter has downgraded the rating on GrainCorp (ASX:GNC) from a buy to a hold and have reduced the 12-month price target on the grain logistics and storage company on the back of analysing key drivers for FY25 including a frost event impacting East coast production and the narrowing of domestic oilseed pricing premiums. 
• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on KMD Brands (ASX:KMD) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 27-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of 47cps to the range of 56 to 58cps according to standard principles of technical analysis.