Australian shares to rise despite mixed close on Wall Street

The news: The Australian sharemarket is poised for gains in early trading, shrugging off a mixed close on Wall Street on Friday.

The numbers: The Dow Jones index rose 0.34% on Friday to end above 40,000 for the first time, the broader S&P 500 gained 0.12% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 0.07%. In the local market, ASX 200 futures were up 35 points or 0.45% at 7,876 points at 7:00am AEST on Monday.

The context: Major US indices ended mixed on Friday but scored weekly gains, as strong corporate results and economic data supported expectations for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve this year. Traders see a 68% chance of the Fed's first rate cut in September, the CME FedWatch Tool showed. The next big catalyst is likely to be chipmaker Nvidia’s earnings report on Wednesday.

In the local market, investors will be mainly focused this week on the release on Tuesday of Reserve Bank minutes from its May meeting.