A late-day rally saw Wall Street close mixed on Friday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 35.84 points, or 0.54 per cent, to close at 6630.28 despite a sharp rise in job losses during February.
The tech-dominated Nasdaq composite dropped 5.74 points, or 0.44 per cent, to 1293.85, while the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 firmed 1.08 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 683.63.
CommSec chief equities economist Craig James said Wall Street's finish was very encouraging against a backdrop of rising job losses that pushed the US unemployment rate to 8.1 per cent from 7.6 per cent in January.
"The Dow finished higher, oil was up, gold was up, base metal prices remain buoyed by expectations of a Chinese economic recovery - that augers well for our market," he said.
"It should be a patchy but encouraging start, perhaps in the region of 10 to 15 points at the start of trade."
Trade will be thinned because of the Labour Day public holiday in Victoria, he added.
On Friday, the Australian share market closed at its weakest level in almost six years, with the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index down 43 points, or 1.35 per cent, at 3,145.5, while the broader All Ordinaries index shed 37.1 points, or 1.18 per cent, to 3,111.7.
It was the S&P/ASX 200's weakest close since mid July 2003.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the March share price index futures contract was 23 points lower at 3146 on a volume of 24,008 contracts.
Mr James said the Australian economy remained in very good shape with flat rather than negative growth, and the negative 0.5 per cent GDP figure for the December quarter was caused by an error term used as part of the GDP calculation.
"It was that error term that contributed all the downturn in the economy so the best representation of our economy is flat rather than anything else. It's not falling, but it's not rising either," he said.
"Negative 0.5 per cent is a drop in the ocean compared to what's happening elsewhere in the world."
The market will also be waiting for the results of several surveys on employment and housing finance data this week, he said.
Tuesday will see the release of the Manpower-Melbourne Institute employment report for March and the ANZ job advertisements survey for February, followed on Thursday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) February labour force data.
National Australia Bank's monthly business survey for February will be released on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the ABS will release its January report on housing finance data, and Westpac-Melbourne Institute will release their consumer sentiment survey for March.
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