Australian shares were flat with a negative bias at Friday's close, amid soft US spending data for September that fixed bets for an interest rate cut on Wednesday.
The S&P/ASX 200 was little changed to close at 8,624.4.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis said that US core personal consumption expenditures price rose 0.2% in September, pointing to a slowdown in the economy's main growth engine, Bloomberg reported.
"Growing optimism of further US rate cuts helped boost sentiment as data was released showing only moderate growth in spending and steady core PCE inflation," said Pat Bustamante, Senior Economist at Westpac Group.
On the domestic front, total card purchases in Australia on domestic-issued cards were flat month over month at AU$93.9 billion in October, following a 0.9% increase in September, according to data from the Reserve Bank.
The weaker year-over-year growth pace for jobs numbers in 2025 is largely due to a stronger base of comparison, Westpac said in a report.
Australia's labor market remains resilient, with wage growth trending higher and job growth steady, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX:CBA) said in its first Wage & Labour Insights report, which draws on de-identified salary flows from around 400,000 accounts at the bank.
In company news, National Storage REIT (ASX:NSR) entered into a scheme implementation deed with a consortium consisting of Brookfield Property Group and GIC Investments (Australia), following the receipt of a conditional acquisition offer from the consortium in November. Shares of the company rose past 2% at market close.
Technology One (ASX:TNE) confirmed confidence in Chief Financial Officer Cale Bennett, who was previously the global CFO of Corporate Travel Management (ASX:CTD).
Lastly, Ainsworth Game Technology (ASX:AGI) expects to report an underlying profit before tax (PBT) of about AU$21.5 million for the year ending Dec. 31.
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