Investing.com - The Australian stock market is forecasted to open in positive territory on Thursday, following a positive performance on Wall Street.
Out of the prominent Magnificent Seven tech stocks, six posted gains, while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) witnessed a slump for the third consecutive day. The S&P 500 index closed at 5000.6.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) sustained its upward trend, securing the third position in terms of market capitalization, trailing behind Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Apple. With a gain of 2.5%, Nvidia surpassed Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL). Earlier in the week, Nvidia also outperformed Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
Ride-hailing companies experienced a boost, with LYFT Inc (NASDAQ:LYFT) soaring by 35% following its prediction of positive cash flow by 2024. Similarly, Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE:UBER) saw a 14% increase after announcing a plan to repurchase $US7 billion of its own shares. The volatility index witnessed a drop of over 9% after the previous session's surge of more than 13%.
Investors are recalibrating their strategies following January's Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, which dampened expectations of quick rate cuts by the Federal Reserve this year. However, these concerns seem to be diminishing. Bitcoin experienced a brief hike, surpassing $US52,000, continuing its strong start to February.
The yield on the US 10-year note decreased by 5 basis points to 4.26% as of 4.42 pm in New York, following a 14 basis point leap in the previous session.
Several companies are slated to report on Thursday, including Arena Group (ASX:ARF), Beacon Lighting Group Ltd (ASX:BLX), Goodman Group (ASX:GMG), Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX:MFG), Origin Energy Ltd (ASX:ORG), Pact Group Holdings Ltd (ASX:PGH), South32 Ltd (ASX:S32), Telstra Group Ltd (ASX:TLS), Treasury Wine Estates Ltd (ASX:TWE), Vicinity Centres Re Ltd (ASX:VCX), Wesfarmers (ASX:WES), and Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX:WHC).
Today's agenda includes the release of MI consumer inflation expectations for February at 11am, and the January labour force survey at 11.30am. Michele Bullock, RBA governor, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Economics Legislation Committee for Additional Estimates at 9am in Canberra. Other overseas data to be released includes NZ's December net migration and January BusinessNZ manufacturing PMI, Japan's fourth-quarter GDP, UK's fourth-quarter GDP, and US's January retail sales, import price index and industrial production, and February's Philly Fed index and NAHB housing market index.