Australian shares to open higher despite mixed Wall Street

The news: The Australian sharemarket is set to start higher even as Wall Street's main indices traded mixed, as investors weighed the latest minutes from the US Federal Reserve and president-elect Donald Trump's tariff pledges.

The numbers: Updated at 7:25am AEDT:

• ASX futures: up 38 points or 0.45% at 8,426 points
• Wall Street: Dow Jones down 0.04%, S&P 500 up 0.41%, Nasdaq up 0.51%
• Europe: FTSE 100 down 0.40%, CAC 40 down 0.87%, DAX down 0.56%
• Spot gold: up 0.17% to USD2,629.60 per ounce
• Oil prices: Brent down 0.59% to USD72.58/barrel, US WTI down 0.58% to USD68.54/bbl
• AUD: down 0.69% at 64.59 US cents
• Bitcoin: down 2.35% to USD90,953.67

The context: The Fed's latest minutes showed officials were divided over how much further they may need to cut interest rates amid volatility in economic data and an upcoming change in administration. Meanwhile, Trump’s vow to impose conditional tariffs on Canadian, Mexican and Chinese imports, weighed on several stocks, including automakers Ford and General Motors, which have highly integrated supply chains across these countries.

What to Watch: Monthly inflation data for October from the Australian Bureau of Statistics at 11:30 AEDT, and annual general meetings for Lynas Rare Earths, HMC Capital, Dubber, NRW Holdings and Liontown among others.