Investing.com - Australian stocks are expected to open higher on Thursday, mirroring overnight gains made on Wall Street.
This follows the release of US May CPI data which revealed a continuous cooling of inflation, thereby raising anticipations of potential rate cuts by the Federal Reserve as early as September.
However, US markets slightly scaled back their gains following comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who indicated that policymakers are awaiting further progress on inflation before deciding on rate reductions.
At the close of trading, the S&P 500 had risen by 0.9% to 5421.03, marking another record high. This significant milestone saw the benchmark index surpassing the 5400 points mark for the first time, with the ongoing bull market now extending to 20 months.
The NASDAQ Composite also enjoyed a 1.6% gain, setting a new record for its closing high.
Tech giants Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) saw significant stock surges, with Apple's gains helping it overtake Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company.
On the local front, job data for May, set to be released at 11.30am AEST, is predicted to show a 0.1% decline in the unemployment rate, bringing it down to 4%, as per consensus forecasts.
Following the release of the CPI report, the yield on the US 10-year note saw a significant drop, although it managed to pare some of its decline after Powell's comments.