Australian shares set to start higher after Wall Street gains

The news: The Australian sharemarket is set to start higher after overnight gains on Wall Street led by tech shares.

The numbers: The Dow Jones index is trading 0.12% higher, while the broader S&P 500 was up 0.54% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.83%. In the local market, ASX 200 futures were trading 47 points or 0.63% higher at 7541 points at 7:00am AEDT on Thursday.

The context: Wall Street's main indices rose, led by gains in Nvidia ahead of the dominant AI chipmaker's quarterly results next week and a rally in ride-hailing platforms Lyft and Uber after the latter unveiled its first share buyback. Meanwhile, interest rate futures suggest traders mostly expect the Fed to begin cutting US rates by its June policy meeting, the CME FedWatch tool showed. In the local market, it will be another busy earnings day with Telstra, Wesfarmers and Origin Energy among the companies reporting.