The Australian Securities Exchange is set to regain its previous day’s losses when trading begins on Thursday after a stronger session on Wall Street overnight.
The ASX 200 index should rise by 1.2% at the opening, according to the latest quotes for the June futures contract which was priced 104 points above the previous settlement at 8,633 points at the time of writing.
Stock prices rose in the United States on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) amid positive sentiment about the technology sector and as Treasury bond yields and crude oil prices fell due to positive news about peace talks between the U.S. and Iran.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.3%, the S&P 500 climbed 1.1% and the Nasdaq Composite surged 1.6% after President Donald Trump said that negotiations with Iran were “in the final stages”.
Another driver was better sentiment about technology and chip stocks related to the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, which rebounded from a three-day sell-off ahead of quarterly results from Nvidia.
"Technology is driving the bus again today, and the AI theme. We've swapped back from yesterday's concerns about rising rates and potential inflation and are leaning more into the all-things-AI story," BMO Private Wealth chief market strategist Carol Schleif was quoted saying in a Reuters story.
"It's actually a little bit unusual because you would expect the market to sit pretty quiet waiting for Nvidia's results later today. But there's clearly a lot of optimism."
A stronger opening on the ASX would help to recoup losses from Australian shares on Wednesday when the ASX 200 Index dipped 1.3% to close at 8,496.6 points amid worries about rising bond yields and inflation.
In news today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will publish unemployment data for April, while Goodman Group (ASX: GMG) and Webjet (ASX: WEB) announce results, and Orica (ASX: ORI) trades ex-dividend.
In fixed interest markets, the Australian Government bond yield curve steepened a little with two-year rates dropping by 0.31% to 4.681% and 10-year rates rising 0.04% to 5.02% at the time of writing.
