Australian Shares Tumble as Tech Stocks Boost Wall Street

The Australian share market is expected to open lower on Friday after Wall Street closed higher overnight due to gains in tech stocks. The Dow Jones rose 0.13%, the S&P 500 increased by 0.65%, and the Nasdaq gained 0.81%. In contrast, the FTSE 100 fell 0.53%.

The price of oil dropped 2.80% to $86.49 per barrel, while Brent crude declined 2.47% to $81.21 per barrel. The Australian dollar was down 0.08% at 70.55 US cents, and spot gold decreased by 1.34% to $4,349 per ounce.

The main driver of the market's performance was softer producer price inflation in the US, which reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged in September. The producer price index rose 4.7% year-on-year in July, down from 5.5% in June. This has increased traders' confidence that the central bank will maintain its current monetary policy.