Australia

Australian shares are set to open lower, after gains in tech stocks lifted the US market.

ASX futures were down 0.36% or 24 points as of 8:00am on Friday, suggesting a lower open.

Tech stocks led the market rebound Thursday, bouncing back after the prior session's inflation-induced selloff.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.7%. The S&P 500 gained 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 2 points, or 0.01%.

In commodity markets, Brent crude oil was down 0.3% to US$90.22 a barrel, while gold was down 0.04% at US$2,371.58.

In local bond markets, the yield on Australian 2 Year government bonds was up at 3.88% while the 10 Year yield was also up at 4.25%. US Treasury notes were mixed, with the 2 Year yield down at 4.96% and the 10 Year yield up at 4.59%.

The Australian dollar was 65.36 US cents up from its previous close or 65.35. The Wall Street Journal Dollar Index, which tracks the US dollar against 16 other currencies, was flat at 99.64.

Asia

Chinese shares closed broadly higher, reversing opening losses. China's trade and industrial activities surprised investors on the upside, though slowing inflation reflect underlying concerns about domestic demand, Citi analysts write in a note. The auto sector led gains, with Chongqing Changan Automobile climbing 5.1% and Great Wall Motor rising 3.1%. Semiconductor stocks also advanced. GigaDevice Semiconductor was up 5.7% and Ingenic Semiconductor gained 3.4%. Biotech stocks led losses. WuXi AppTec was down 3.9% and Cathay Biotech shed 2.95%. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index ended 0.2% higher at 3034.25 and the Shenzhen Composite Index added 0.1%. The ChiNext Price Index dropped 0.4%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index edged 0.3% lower to close at 17095.03, paring earlier losses after China's CPI came in lower than anticipated. Weak demand has kept price pressures muted in China, fueling deflation concerns that could spill over elsewhere. Downside risks from falling domestic property prices and overcapacity in some sectors remain, the UOB Global Economics & Markets Research team writes in a note. China Hongqiao gained 3.4%, WH Group rose 2.4% and Sunny Optical was 2.1% higher. Among the decliners, Zhongsheng Group lost 6.3%, while New World Development and Chow Tai Fook fell by 4.3% each.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average fell 0.35% to close at 39442.63, dragged by ebbing Fed rate-cut hopes following hotter-than-expected U.S. CPI data overnight. With Japanese stock markets reaching new highs recently, a pullback owing to short-term momentum reversion is possible, Lazard Asset Management says in a note. Seven & I Holdings slid 4.8% after reporting its FY net profit dropped 20%. Other top decliners were Mitsui Fudosan, which slipped 4.0%, Aeon, which lost 3.9%, and Makita, which was down 3.0%. The 10-year JGB yield was up 5.5bps at 0.850%.

Indian shares closed higher, lifted by energy and bank stocks ahead of the fiscal 4Q earnings season. Investors are also waiting for the U.S. March inflation data due later in the day to further gauge the Fed's next move after a robust jobs report. Kotak Mahindra Bank was up 2.4% and State Bank of India rose 1.9%. Reliance Industries advanced 1.1% and Coal India added 3.7%. Auto stocks ended broadly lower, with Mahindra & Mahindra down 0.6% and Maruti Suzuki dropping 1.6%. The benchmark Sensex ended 0.5% higher at 75038.15.

Europe

European shares ended Thurssday lower, with the pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 down 0.4% to 504.55, the CAC 40 losing 0.3% to 8,023.74 while Germany's DAX shed 0.8% to 17,954.48.

The U.K.'s FTSE 100 index fell 0.5% to 7,923.80.

North America

Tech stocks led the market rebound Thursday, bouncing back after the prior session's inflation-induced selloff.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.7%. The S&P 500 gained 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 2 points, or 0.01%.

Stocks mostly shook off Wednesday's pullback, which was driven by a hotter-than-expected consumer-price reading. The report marked the latest in a series of releases showing persistent inflationary pressures, forcing investors to reconsider if the Federal Reserve will be able to cut interest rates anytime soon.

The latest wholesale price report released Thursday morning offered some relief to investors on edge about inflation. The producer-price index rose 0.2% in March, lower than economists' expectations of 0.3%.

Shares of tech companies rallied. The S&P 500's information-technology sector jumped 2.4%, the top-performing segment of the index on Thursday, followed by communication-services and consumer-discretionary stocks.

Amazon shares rose 1.7% to notch a fresh all-time high after CEO Andy Jassy said generative artificial intelligence could be one of the largest technological transformations in decades, and committed to cutting costs. Nvidia's stock climbed 4.1% and Apple advanced 4.3%.

"Investors just really, really, really want to own tech stocks," said Melissa Brown, head of applied research at SimCorp.

Wall Street continued to revise projections about the Fed's interest-rate policy. Bank of America on Thursday said it now sees one rate cut this year, in December. It previously expected the Fed to begin lowering rates in June. Traders entered the year pricing in six or seven rate cuts in 2024, but now view one or two cuts as more likely, according to federal-fund futures. Some see no cuts at all this year.

Boston Fed President Susan Collins in a speech Thursday said that the urgency for lowering interest rates is lower now than it was earlier this year.

"The risks of monetary policy being too tight have receded," she said.

New York Fed President John Williams in a separate speech Thursday suggested the Fed was likely to maintain its cautious approach toward cutting interest rates, saying, "We have not seen the total alignment of our dual mandate quite yet."

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose to 4.575%, after notching its biggest one-day jump since September 2022 on Wednesday.

The conventional thinking is that higher interest rates tend to hurt stock prices by curbing economic growth and increasing the relative investing appeal of bonds. But some investors believe that the stock market won't be in dire straits if rates remain at current levels.

"The economy is strong," said Doug Fincher, portfolio manager at Ionic Capital Management. "Perhaps some of these small moves in rates don't matter that much."

Earnings season kicks off in earnest on Friday when JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo are due to report results.

Analysts are expecting companies in the S&P 500 to report first-quarter earnings roughly 3% higher than the same period a year ago, according to FactSet. That would mark a third consecutive quarter of earnings growth.

The quarterly results will show investors whether corporate profits are backing up the S&P 500's 9% rally year to date.

"The earnings story is the news and the interest-rate story is the noise, " said David Waddell, chief executive at Waddell & Associates.

Shares of Morgan Stanley fell 5.2% after The Wall Street Journal reported multiple federal regulators are probing the bank's wealth-management division over how it vets clients for money-laundering risk.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals stock dropped 1.7% after the Justice Department accused it of fraudulent practices related to its vision drug, Eylea.

Shares of Constellation Brands rose 1.3% after the Modelo maker posted better-than-expected quarterly sales.