Fresh closing highs on Wall Street may not be enough to prevent Australian shares from opening lower on Thursday.
The initial direction on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has been flagged by the S&P/ASX 200 share price index (SPI) September contract which was trading 11 points (0.1%) lower than the previous settlement of 8,587 points, at the time of writing.
Strong technology stocks and news of a trade deal between the United States and Vietnam helped push the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indices to record highs on Wednesday (Thursday, AEST).
While the S&P 500 rose 0.47% and the Nasdaq jumped 0.94%, the Dow Jones edged up by just 0.02% in New York.
State Street Global Advisors Chief Investment Strategist Michael Arone said the U.S. market was relieved by trade talks progress.
"The deal with Vietnam was welcome news," Arone was quoted in a Reuters story as saying.
The Australian sharemarket ignored a mixed session on Wall Street to finish at a new high close on Wednesday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index adding 0.7% to 8,597.7 on hopes interest rates would continue to fall.
Economic and market news today includes data on international goods trade and services activity and shares in ALS (ASX: ALQ) and Qualitas Real Estate Income Fund (ASX: QRI) trade ex-dividend.
On the Australian fixed interest markets, yields fell with 10-year Treasury bonds down 0.12% to 4.199% and two-year bonds off 0.28% to 3.247%.
