The Australian sharemarket is expected to open a little lower on Monday despite a stronger end to last week on Wall Street as investors await the next interest rate decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).
The S&P/ASX 200 index should start just five points under the closing level of Friday, according to futures trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), with the December contract of the share price index last quoted at 8,887 points.
This means there will be little change from Friday when the benchmark finished almost unchanged, as the market looked ahead to tomorrow when the RBA decision may be easier to predict than the outcome of the Melbourne Cup horse race to be run the same day.
The central bank is expected to keep official rates on hold due to an unexpected rise in inflation announced last week.
Wall Street's main stock indexes closed higher on Friday, boosted mostly by a bullish profit forecast from Amazon, despite increased Federal Reserve caution about cutting United States rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.1%, the S&P 500 added 0.3% while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.6%.
"The theme today is pretty similar to what we saw yesterday. Its earnings are coming in a little better than expected but tempered by a little more hawkish commentary from the Fed," D.A. Davidson co-CIO and Director of Investment Management Research James Ragan was quoted in a Reuters story as saying.
The Australian sharemarket had finished down 3.6 points at 8,881.9 points on Friday to end a week when prices fell on average 1.5%.
The major corporate news includes the full-year results from Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC).
In fixed interest markets, the yield curve steepened as two-year rates dropped 0.17% to 3.572% while 10-year rates rose 0.88% to 4.388%.
