The Australian sharemarket is expected to open largely flat on Tuesday following modest declines on Wall Street overnight, with local investors turning their attention to the Reserve Bank of Australia's interest rate decision later in the session.
ASX 200 futures were down 3 points at 9,178, while the S&P 500 closed 0.1% lower.
In the United States overnight, major benchmarks finished slightly lower as investors became less optimistic about a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 61 points, or 0.1%, to 53,976.0. The S&P 500 declined 4.5 points, or 0.1%, to 7,753.1, while the Nasdaq dropped 85.3 points, or 0.3%, to 26,605.4.
The S&P 500 recorded a record closing high on Friday, supported by much stronger-than-expected earnings results.
"It’s record margins and record earnings. That's just been the story of this market, and yet the overlay of the Iran conflict just pulls risk sentiment on and then pulls it off," Tom Hainlin, an investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis, was quoted as saying in a Reuters story.
"The direct impact is just the energy sector and ... oil prices, and they're just sticky here above where they were on February 27 before the conflict. So there's clearly no transparency of the path to get back to where we were before the conflict started, and so that premium's just being built in. So far, the world's been able to work around it, but those workarounds don't last forever."
The Australian sharemarket declined on Monday as investors assessed local corporate results, with Westpac falling 5.9% after the lender reported a 20% decline in mortgage applications during its third quarter.
The S&P/ASX 200 fell 31.0 points, or 0.3%, to 9,232.6, despite seven of the 11 sectors finishing higher.
Companies reporting on Tuesday include Life360, Coronado Global Resources, Helia and SGH.
The Reserve Bank of Australia's policy statement is slated for 2:30 pm (AEST). The central bank will release its Statement on Monetary Policy at the same time.
A press conference is scheduled to begin at 3:30 pm.
On the bond markets, the 10-year yield was up 0.2% at 5.011%, while the 2-year rate was down 0.5% at 4.606%.
