Australian share prices are likely to fall on Thursday after the rally on Wall Street almost ground to a halt as investors continued to pore over Federal Reserve monetary policy comments.
A drop of 0.4% on opening at 10 am AEST (12 pm GMT Wednesday) is in store for the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) where the main index closed little changed on Wednesday.
At the time of writing the S&P/ASX 200 share price index September contract was quoted 37 points below the previous settlement of 8,500.
Traders are expected to be guided by a mixed session in New York, where a two-day rally ended as the ceasefire between Israel and Iran remained in place and investors considered testimony from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
U.S. President Donald Trump claimed success in ending the Middle East war, although it was unclear how much damage the U.S. had inflicted on Iran's uranium enrichment assets with its bombing raids.
Powell told the US Senate Banking Committee the Fed was well-positioned to wait to cut interest rates when inflationary effects of President Donald Trump's tariffs were better known.
U.S. stock indices painted a mixed picture with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 0.3%, the S&P 500 ending flat and the Nasdaq Composite gaining 0.3% due to strength in technology stocks including NVIDIA, which hit an all-time high, on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) rose 4.3% to regain its position as the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of US$3.75 trillion.
Carson Group chief market strategist Ryan Detrick said waiting for the S&P 500 to reach record highs was “almost like watching paint dry”.
"We've dealt with the tariffs, we've dealt with the Middle East drama, but stocks continue to defy the odds by moving higher with the realization that the U.S. economy remains quite resilient,” he was quoted in a Reuters story as saying.
The Australian sharemarket closed steady on Wednesday with the S&P/ASX 200 ending 3.7 points down at 8,559.2 points.
In Australian fixed interest markets, Treasury bond yields tracked U.S. rates lower with 10-year securities down 0.10% to 4.143% and two-year bonds down 0.06% to 3.208%.
