Australian shares are poised to open higher on Wednesday after Wall Street advanced modestly overnight, while oil prices fell more than 5% as Iran and Oman pushed ahead with plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
S&P/ASX 200 futures were up 29 points, or 0.3%, at 9,143.
In the United States, major benchmark indexes finished higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.3%, the S&P 500 gaining 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite advancing 0.7%.
Longer-dated U.S. Treasury yields fell on Tuesday as oil prices dropped to a one-week low, while investors continued to assess the implications of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's decision to expand Treasury buybacks.
"There's a lot of push and pull — in the bond market, geopolitics, oil," Joe Quinlan, head of market strategy for Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank, was quoted as saying in a Reuters story.
"But we're pretty constructive on the outlook (for the) next 12, 18 months on the U.S. economy; therefore, we are constructive on the markets as well."
Oil prices tumbled overnight after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi discussed an “interim framework” aimed at resuming shipping through the key waterway.
The Australian sharemarket finished Tuesday's session higher as investors digested a fresh batch of local earnings results.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index gained 61.5 points, or 0.7%, to 9,164.6, with nine of the 11 sectors finishing higher.
Australian reporting season continues on Wednesday, with Tabcorp Holdings, Sandfire Resources, Nuix, Polynovo, HMC Capital, Nine Entertainment, WiseTech Global, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Woolworths Group, Steadfast Group and Droneshield among the companies scheduled to report results.
Local investors will also monitor fresh consumer price index (CPI) data due for release at 11:30 am AEST (1:30 am GMT), which could provide further insight into the inflation outlook and the Reserve Bank of Australia's monetary policy path.
On the bond markets, 10-year rates were down 0.1% at 4.973%, while two-year rates rose 0.4% to 4.566%.
