ASX set to rise on Wall Street rally as January inflation data looms

As global markets search for footing in an era of persistent inflation anxiety, Wall Street's overnight rally has offered a moment of reassurance — broad gains across American indices suggesting that investor confidence, though fragile, has not yet broken. Australia now inherits that cautious optimism, with futures pointing higher and the dollar firming, even as commodity signals remain divided. Yet the day's true reckoning arrives at 11:30am AEDT, when a single inflation figure will remind markets that sentiment, however buoyant, must ultimately answer to economic reality.