The Australian share market may end three days of gains despite a higher close in New York where technology stocks were among the companies performing best.
Futures were flagging a weaker opening today with the S&P/ASX 200 March share price index (SPI) contract trading 35 points or 0.4% lower at 8,377 at 9:45 am AEDT (10:45 pm GMT).
On Wall Street overnight, the Nasdaq Composite outperformed the two other main stock indices, jumping 1.3%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.3% higher and the S&P 500 gained 0.6%.
Buoying the Nasdaq was a rally by Oracle and Nvidia, which were seen as beneficiaries of U.S. President Trump’s US$500 billion “Stargate” joint venture to develop artificial intelligence, and streaming service Netflix, which beat fourth quarter forecasts.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index Australian market had closed 0.3% higher on Wednesday at 8,429.8, with technology and real estate among the seven ASX sectors that went higher.
Burrell Stockbroking wealth adviser Adam Dight said although some U.S. stocks had responded positively to Trump’s initial decisions and comments, it was unclear what he would say from day to day.
He said investors wanting to position themselves well for the upcoming Australian profit reporting season needed to focus on quality stocks with dominant brands, market leadership and excellent management.
“If you stick with the best stocks and the best earnings, (they’re) the ones more likely to beat expectations. Good old reliable blue chips,” Dight said.
“If you have an earnings beat, that’s all you can do. I think there’s going to be some disastrous performances post results.”
Among the stocks in focus today will be retailers Myer and Premier Investments, whose shareholders are voting on a proposal for Myer to buy apparel brands from Premier, and iron ore producer Fortescue Metals, which hands down a quarterly report.
On the bond markets, yields on Australian Government 10-year Treasury bonds rose 0.04% to 4.488% while yields on two-year paper dropped 0.08% to 3.949%.