Australian stocks to start lower after Wall St losses

The news: The Australian sharemarket is poised to drop in early trading after declines for the major US indices overnight on the back of a slide in Oracle shares and higher oil prices.

The numbers: The Dow Jones index edged 0.05% lower, but the broader S&P 500 dropped 0.57% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 1.04%, led by a 13% slide in Oracle shares after a lower-than-expected forecast. In the local market, ASX 200 futures were trading 21 points or 0.29% lower at 7190 points at 0700 AEST on Wednesday.

The context: The weaker earnings by Oracle put pressure on other cloud-computing heavyweights Amazon.com and Microsoft, while a jump of more than 1% in oil prices stoked worries that sticky inflation could mean US interest rates stay higher longer. Investors are looking to August consumer price index data due tonight to gauge the outlook for rates ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting on 20 Sept.