Bareksa.com - Australian shares are seen steadying on Thursday as Wall Street crawled higher overnight with the S&P 500 ending at another record, although resource stocks may come under pressure on weaker metal prices.

* Local share price index futures added 0.2 percent, a 9.2-point premium to the underlying S&P/ASX 200 index close. The benchmark lost 0.6 percent on Wednesday to sit at a near two-week low.

* New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index was flat in early trade.

* U.S. stocks edged up overnight with the S&P 500 ending at a new record as investors brushed off weaker-than-expected labor market data and focused on an acceleration in services-sector growth.

* Copper dropped to a three-week low, in its biggest one-day fall since mid-April, on jitters about the impact on financing deals from a probe at a Chinese port.

* Chinese iron ore futures edged higher as investors took advantage of battered prices to buy the steelmaking raw material, and futures in Singapore rose for a third session.

* Gold slipped as investors fretted over the possiblity of an upcoming European Central Bank rate cut and uncertainties over key U.S. jobs data due later this week.

* Australia's largest listed agribusiness GrainCorp said it will invest A$200 million into its country grain storage network.

* Trade balance data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Chinese HSBC Services PMI are both due out later in the day.

----------------------MARKET SNAPSHOT @ 2300 GMT ------------

INSTRUMENT LAST PCT CHG NET CHG S&P 500 1927.88 0.19% 3.640 USD/JPY 102.69 -0.04% -0.040 10-YR US TSY YLD 2.6058 -- 0.000 SPOT GOLD 1243.5 0.06% 0.700 US CRUDE 102.22 -0.41% -0.420 DOW JONES 16737.53 0.09% 15.19 ASIA ADRS 145.46 -0.35% -0.51 -------------------------------------------------------------

* S&P ends at new record on strong services sector growth data * Oil Drops back on hopes for an easing of Ukraine tension * Gold falls ahead of ECB policy meeting, jobs data * Copper falls to three-week low on worries about Chinese.

(Source : Reuters)