A record high by one of the major United States equities indexes has set the Australian share market up for a stronger day on Wednesday.
The new peak in the Dow Jones Industrial Average has provided an optimistic tone for trading when it resumes on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) at 10:00 am AEDT (11:00 pm GMT Tuesday).
Among the stocks in focus will be BluScope Steel, which soared on Tuesday after receiving a takeover offer.
The ASX 200 index is expected to open 0.47% above the previous close, according to trading in March share price index futures contract which was last quoted 41 points higher than the previous settlement at 8,701 points.
Stock prices on Wall Street ended higher on Tuesday (AEDT) as technology stocks were boosted by optimism about the potential of artificial intelligence and after Moderna rallied on a broker share price target upgrade.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.99% to 49,462.08 points, the S&P 500 gained 0.62% and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.65%.
Memory and storage technology stocks rallied on news of news from Nvidia about new storage technology.
"I think we're going to have a very strong earnings season for Big Tech, and all those capex estimates that we hear about are going to be revised higher again," Argent Capital Portfolio Manager Jed Ellerbroek said in in a Reuters article.
There will be interest in Australia’s November consumer price index data to be issued at 11:30 am AEDT with inflation forecast by economists to fall from 3.8% to 3.6% and the trimmed mean to dip from 3.3% to 3.2%.
The Australian sharemarket had ended down on Tuesday despite opening higher and a rise in materials stocks spurred by a A$13.15 billion takeover bid for BlueScope with the ASX 200 dropping 0.5% to 8,682.80 points.
In fixed interest markets, Australian Government bond yields were higher trading higher at the time of writing with two year rates up 0.99% to 4.085% and 10 year rates up 0.17% to 4.777%.
