The Australian sharemarket is set to keep climbing for a second consecutive day on Thursday after stocks in the United States opened a new month with strong gains.
The ASX 200 index should rise by 0.21% when the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) reopens at 10:00 am AEDT (11:00 pm GMT Wednesday), according to ASX futures trading.
The June share price contract was quoted 19.00 points over the previous settlement at 8,728 points at the time of writing.
This followed Wall Street closing higher on Wednesday, the first day of April, after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested an end to the Middle East conflict could be close.
Morgans Financial private client adviser Lachlan Walsh said he was buying small positions in high-quality stocks that had been sold off heavily.
They included REA Group (ASX: REA), CAR Group (ASX: CAR), Pro Medicus (ASX: PME) and AP Eagers (ASX: APE).
“We are telling everyone that the market is looking up, moving in the right direction,” he said.
“We are happy buying at these levels, just chipping away.”
But Walsh said that although the markets had recovered out of official correction territory, it was tough to know what would happen with the Middle East conflict.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%, the S&P 500 added 0.7%, and the Nasdaq Composite soared 1.2% in the wake of Trump saying the U.S. would be "out of Iran pretty quickly" and could return for "spot hits" if needed.
Trump was speaking ahead of a scheduled national address expected to provide further clarity on the situation.
."We have Trump's comments, which tend to change a bit," Globalt Investments said senior portfolio manager Thomas Martin was quoted saying in this Reuters article.
"Everybody's trying to guess as to what he really means by what he's saying. The markets want it to be positive, they want the war to be over."
The Australian market had bounced back on Wednesday from its worst monthly performance in four years, with the ASX 200 surging 2.2% to 8,671.8 points as 10 of the 11 sectors finished up.
In fixed interest markets, the Australian Government bond yield curve flattened as two-year rates rose 0.32% to 4.646% and 10 year rates eased 0.08% to 4.951% at the time of writing.
