Australian share prices are expected to open modestly higher on Monday after stocks in the United States finished the week and month with gains in thin trading on Friday.
The ASX 200 index should begin just 0.04% above its previous close, based on Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) futures trading, which priced the December share price index contract just four points over the previous settlement at 8,628 points.
The market opens a week which includes the release on Wednesday of Australian national accounts data showing how much the economy grew in the September quarter of 2025, compared with 1.8% in the year to 30 June.
U.S. equities climbed on Friday (Saturday AEDT) during a shorter trading session, a day after the Thanksgiving public holiday, with gains in retail and technology stocks and rising hopes of lower interest rates elevating the mood.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 0.6%, the S&P 500 put on 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.7% as expectations increased that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates this month.
Although the S&P and Dow showed marginal gains in November, the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed down 1.51% because of rising worries about the valuation of technology companies leveraged to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
"This is a light volume post-holiday session, as those tend to be, with not much activity," Smead Capital Management CEO Cole Smead was quoted in a Reuters story as saying.
"But I think everyone woke up over the past weeks to the fact that the outcome of AI is still very unknown."
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 finished off by 0.04% at 8,614.1 points on Friday despite eight of the 11 sectors closing higher.
In the news today, data on home prices, job ads, inflation, inventories and corporate profits are scheduled to be released.
In the bond markets, yields on Australian Government bonds rose, with two-year rates gaining 0.26% to 3.829% and 10-year rates adding 0.20% to 4.539%.
