The Australian sharemarket is set to open broadly flat on Thursday, tracking a narrow session on Wall Street as investors weighed US inflation data and awaited Nvidia's latest results.
ASX 200 futures were down 4 points, or 0.04%, at 9,068.
On Wall Street overnight, the major indexes finished slightly lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.02% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.1%.
A Commerce Department report showed annual U.S. inflation rose 3.7% in the 12 months through July, slightly above expectations.
Separate data showed the U.S. economy grew 1.5% in the second quarter.
"There is no crisis, it is more about expectations or guidance we are going to get from the Fed and what the Treasury is trying to do. That blends to some uncertainty and basically increases the risk premium," Greg Tuorto, head of U.S. small and midcap investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, was quoted as saying in a Reuters story.
"But on the other side, on the positive side, the underlying economic environment is really good. Earnings for the companies that we own and some of the larger cap companies are standout," he said.
Meanwhile, Nvidia shares jumped more than 4% in extended trading after the AI chipmaker forecast current-quarter revenue of US$108 billion, above Wall Street expectations.
The Australian sharemarket reversed earlier gains to finish lower on Wednesday after inflation data came in above expectations, increasing the prospect of further interest-rate rises by the Reserve Bank of Australia. A busy local earnings calendar also kept investors cautious.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 36.8 points, or 0.4%, to 9,127.8, with seven of the 11 sectors ending lower.
Annual inflation slowed to 3.5% in July from 3.8% in June, but remained above economists' forecast of 3.3%. The trimmed mean, the RBA's preferred measure of underlying inflation, held at 3.6%.
Companies scheduled to report today include South32, Magellan Financial Group, Wesfarmers, Perpetual, Bapcor, Karoon Energy, Atlas Arteria, Qantas Airways and Eagers Automotive.
On the bond markets, 10-year and two-year Treasury yields rose 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively, to 5.057% and 4.697%.
