Australian sharemarket set to open weaker

The news: The Australian sharemarket is poised to open weaker after major indices on Wall Street drifted lower, weighed down by a drop in shares of Cisco and Walmart following underwhelming forecasts, while optimism around peaking interest rates fades.

The numbers: The Dow Jones index is down 0.25%, while the broader S&P 500 was up 0.04%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq up 0.02%. In the local market, ASX 200 futures were trading eight points or 0.11% lower at 7078 points around 7:40am AEDT on Friday.

The context: Wall Street's main indexes have rallied this week as evidence of cooling inflation in the world's largest economy fuelled hopes the US Federal Reserve was probably done hiking interest rates. In a data-packed week, in which the tech-heavy Nasdaq hit an over three-month high, markets also took comfort from the US Senate's passage of a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown. Keeping declines in check, US Treasury yields moved lower after the Labor Department's report showed weekly jobless claims rose more than expected, cementing bets that the Fed will not need to raise rates further.