Australian shares are expected to rise early after gains on Wall Street, where a rebound in technology shares outweighed concerns from surging coronavirus cases.

The Australian SPI 200 futures contract was higher by 50.0 points, or 0.85 per cent, to 5941.0 points at 0800 AEST on Wednesday.

US investors have been weighing a recent string of upbeat economic data including record job additions and a rebound in the service sector in June, against the surge in US coronavirus cases recently.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.68 per cent to 26,067.28, the S&P 500 gained 0.78 per cent to 3,169.94 and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.44 per cent to 10,492.50.

In Australia, economic data of interest to be published includes housing, personal and business loans for May.

Meanwhile Melburnians have begun the first day back of stay-at-home lockdown for six weeks in a bid to contain a second wave of coronavirus cases in the state.

Residents can only leave their homes to get food and supplies, receive or provide care, exercise, and study or work.

IG Markets analyst Kyle Rodda said whether investors have fully discounted the economic impact of the lockdown would be the driving factor for the ASX today.

He said COVID-19 sensitive sectors, such as banking, real estate and consumer discretionaries, were mostly responsible for the ASX200’s 1.54 per cent drop on Wednesday.

The Australian dollar was buying 69.81 US cents at 0800 AEST, higher from 69.34 US cents at the close of trade on Wednesday.