Australian shares are expected to open lower on Friday, despite a strong finish on Wall Street, as softer United States producer price data boosted expectations that Federal Reserve policymakers will leave interest rates unchanged at their September meeting.
S&P/ASX 200 futures were down 37 points, or 0.4%, at 9,091.
In the U.S., major benchmark averages finished higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.1%, the S&P 500 climbing 0.7% to a fresh record high and the Nasdaq advancing 0.8%.
"The AI earnings-driven tech boom continues," Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors in New York was quoted as saying in a Reuters story.
"It's an earnings boom, not a bubble."
The probability of the Fed holding interest rates unchanged next month has risen to 65.6%, according to the CME's FedWatch metric. The figure stood at 59.4% a day earlier, 45% a week ago and 24.9% a month ago.
The Australian sharemarket finished Thursday's session slightly lower following a series of corporate earnings reports and a sell-off in Commonwealth Bank shares.
The S&P/ASX 200 declined 20.9 points, or 0.2%, to 9,188.5, with six of the 11 sectors ending lower.
Among companies reporting results on Friday are Abacus Storage King (ASK) and QBE Insurance (QBE).
On the bond markets, 10-year Treasury yields fell 0.1% to 4.958%, while two-year rates declined 0.6% to 4.537%.
