By David Chau

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Good morning, and welcome to the ABC’s finance blog! I’ll be your guide for the next few hours.

Wall Street’s main indexes fell slightly from their record highs, as investors decided to take profits (cash out) ahead of the US interest rate decision (expected tomorrow at 4am AEST).

Our local share market is likely to start its day marginally lower, with ASX futures down 0.3%.

However, the Australian dollar has risen to a 10-month high of around 66.85 US cents.

That’s because the US greenback has weakened on expectations interest rates are about to be slashed in America.

Spot gold, meanwhile, continues to hit new record highs. It briefly went above $US3,700 per ounce overnight.

Basically, when rates are coming down, it increases the attractiveness of holding assets that don’t pay interest, like precious metals.

Also, it’s because there’s a lot of “safe haven” demand for gold due to heightened levels of geopolitical conflict and concerns about the health of the US economy, tariffs and trillions of dollars in government debt.