The Australian sharemarket is expected to open slightly lower on Friday, tracking a subdued performance on Wall Street as investors weighed corporate earnings and monitored diplomatic developments in the Middle East.
ASX 200 futures were down 4 points, or 0.04%, to 9,190.
Overnight in the United States, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9%, the S&P 500 slipped 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite eased 0.1%.
"You're seeing perhaps more muted response to macro news than you would otherwise see, probably due to the fact of the summer and a little bit of fatigue, there's a little bit of headline fatigue, specifically around Iran," Robert Bernstone, head of trading at SummitTX Capital in New York, was quoted as saying in a Reuters story.
"Iran is having less of an impact right now, to be clear, I'm not saying it has no impact ... tweets are something, headlines are something, but we really want to see the devil is in the details."
The cautious start follows another record close for the Australian sharemarket on Thursday as optimism grew over the prospect of a U.S.-Iran agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index gained 43.8 points, or 0.5%, to finish at 9,271.6, with eight of the 11 sectors ending the session higher.
Investors will also be watching earnings from Atlassian on the Nasdaq and Nick Scali on the ASX.
Attention later in the day will turn to the release of the closely watched U.S. July nonfarm payrolls report, due at 10:30 pm AEST, which could shape expectations for the Federal Reserve's interest rate outlook.
On the bond markets, the 10-year yield slipped 0.2% to 4.971%, while the two-year yield was unchanged at 4.562%.
