The Australian sharemarket is expected to defy negative signals from the United States and extend gains by opening higher on Thursday, according to Australian Seurities Exchange (ASX) futures pricing.
The ASX 200 index should start up 0.27%, based on the March share price index contract being quoted 24 points over the previous settlement at 8,816 points at the time of writing.
This was more heavily traded than the February contract which showed the benchmark rising by just 0.8%.
The direction in New York was down overnight as technology shares dipped amid a move into more defensive sectors and banks extended recent losses after mixed quarterly results.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average eased just 0.09%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.53% and the Nasdaq Composite dived 1.00% due to the rotation out of tech stocks on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT).
Financial stocks continued to fall in the wake of threats to cap credit-card interest rates and as investors assessed quarterly results.
"After a nice run, and so-so or mediocre earnings, you're seeing profit-taking and consolidation (in the banks),” JonesTrading Chief Market Strategist Michael O’Rourke was quoted by Reuters saying in an article.
He said although the market was generally optimistic about the banks and the credit-card cap plan may never proceed "none of the bank executives could rule it out."
The Australian market had finished up a little on Wednesday, helped by energy stocks rising on higher oil prices, with the ASX 200 index ending 0.1% higher at 8,820.60 points.
Economic news in Australia includes the latest consumer inflation expectations data while among the stocks to watch are oil producers in the wake of higher crude prices in offshore markets.
In fixed interest markets, Australian Government bond yields fell with two year rates down 0.057% at 3.995% and 10 year rates off by 0.87% at 4.667%.
