Australian shares to start lower despite Wall Street gains
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: The Australian sharemarket is poised to start lower despite Wall Street's major indices edging higher, after US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell signalled the central bank will continue lowering interest rates gradually to support economic growth and employment.
The numbers: The Dow Jones index rose 0.04% higher, while the broader S&P 500 gained 0.42% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.38%. In the local market, ASX 200 futures were down 32 points or 0.39% at 8,274 points at 7am AEST on Tuesday.
The context: The S&P 500 ended with slight gains this morning after briefly falling post Powell's remarks at a National Association for Business Economics conference in Nashville.
Powell said the US central bank is not in a hurry to lower interest rates and he sees two more cuts, totalling 50 basis points, this year as a baseline if the economy evolves as expected.
As a result, traders lowered their hopes for another 50 basis point cut in November. The probability of a half percentage point move fell to 34.6% near 4pm New York time, from 46.7% on Friday, Reuters said.
In the local market, the Australian Bureau of Statistics is due to release August retail sales and building approvals data at 11:30am AEST.
The source: Reuters
