Australian shares set to lift after Wall Street highs

The news: The Australian sharemarket is set to start the week higher after Wall Street’s main indices notched record closing highs in a shortened Black Friday session.

The numbers: Updated at 7:25am AEDT:

• ASX futures: up 21 points or 0.25% at 8,479 points
• Wall Street: Dow Jones up 0.42%, S&P 500 up 0.56%, Nasdaq up 0.83%
• Europe: FTSE 100 up 0.07%, CAC 40 up 0.78%, DAX up 1.03%
• Spot gold: up 0.20% to USD2,643.15 per ounce
• Oil prices: Brent down 1.29% to USD71.84/barrel, US WTI down 1.05% to USD68.00/bbl
• AUD: up 0.12% at 65.19 US cents
• Bitcoin: up 0.51% to USD96,939.68

The context: The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average hit fresh highs at close on Friday, lifted by technology stocks and also aided by industrial stocks. Nvidia gained 2%, while Tesla rose 3.7%. Investors were pricing in expectations that Trump's pro-business policies could spur economic growth and corporate profits. However, concerns prevail that they could also stoke inflation, slow the pace of the US Federal Reserve's rate cuts and weigh on global growth.

What to Watch: Building approvals data for October, retail trade data for October and business indicators for September quarter data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics at 11:30am AEDT.