Australian shares have struggled for momentum as gains in miners on the back of firm commodity prices countered losses in technology and financial stocks.

After a modest gain in early trade, the ASX 200 was down 8 points or 0.1 per cent to 6,783 at 12:27pm AEST.

At the same time, the Australian dollar was down at 69.06 US cents.

Miners gained 1.1 per cent, with sector majors BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals adding between 1.1 per cent and 2.1 per cent.

Iron ore prices rose on Friday as falling steel inventories in the world's biggest steel producer, China, indicated demand for replenished supplies.

Diversified miner South 32 jumped as much as 2.1 per cent after posting a rise in fourth-quarter metallurgical output from its flagship Illawarra project in New South Wales.

Technology stocks were the top drag, shedding almost 1 per cent after major Wall Street indexes closed lower on Friday.

Shares of EML Payments fell as much as 21 per cent to $0.95 and were on track for their worst session since July 11 if losses hold.

The company said its Irish unit, PFS Card Services (Ireland) Ltd, had made adjustments to its remediation program after the Central Bank of Ireland identified some shortcomings following a review of its risk assessment framework.

The firm anticipates that the adjustments to the remediation programme will result in assurance being finalised in 2023.

Financials (-0.3pc) edged lower, with three of the big four banks trading in negative territory.

Gold stocks gained 0.6 per cent, while energy stocks dipped 0.9 per cent.

Newcrest Mining, Australia's largest yellow metal miner, and heavyweight oil major Woodside Energy fell 0.2 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively.

Shares of Flight Centre jumped 4.9 per cent as the company said it narrowed its 2021-22 loss forecast to a range of $180 million to $190 million from an initial range of $195 million to $225 million, due to "a solid rebound in travel demand globally".

It said it now expected to break even on an underlying core earnings basis for six months to June 30.

Meanwhile, casino operator Crown announced on Monday that it will open its Sydney casino in Barangaroo on August 8.

The company became private after being bought out by US private equity giant Blackstone in June. It is no longer required to report to the ASX.

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Wall Street lower

On Friday, Wall Street posted modest losses in early trading but declines on the S&P 500 accelerated as Big Tech names such as Meta and Alphabet lost ground in the wake of earnings from Snap Inc, which plunged 39.1 per cent.

Defensive sectors such as utilities and consumer staples were among the few advancers.

"Every rally we have had during this bear market, there have been a number of sharp rallies and then they fade and we set new lows, and that has been a pretty consistent pattern here," Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York, said.

"Everybody is looking for the turn, everybody is trying to guess at when we get a sustained rally and everybody is hoping for one. But to me, there is still a lot of unknown ahead of us."

With 106 of the S&P 500 companies having reported earnings through Friday morning, 75.5 per cent had topped analyst expectations, below the 81 per cent beat rate over the past four quarters, according to Refinitiv data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 138 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 31,899, the S&P 500 lost 37 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 3,962 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 226 points, or 1.9 per cent, to 11,834.

For the week, the Dow advanced almost 2 per cent, the S&P 500 gained 2.6 per cent and the Nasdaq rose 3.3 per cent.

The gains for the Dow and S&P marked their biggest weekly percentage gains in four.

Recent data has shown signs of a slowing economy, but the Federal Reserve is still widely expected to raise US interest rates by 75 basis points at its policy meeting to combat inflation.

On Thursday, the European Central Bank (ECB) raised rates by 50 basis points after weeks of indicating a 25-basis-point hike was in the offing.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed up 0.3 per cent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.4 per cent after climbing to 624 — its highest level since June 10.

The MSCI index climbed 3.1 per cent for the week and the STOXX 600 notched its biggest weekly percentage gain in two months, in part due to easing concerns over a potential energy crisis.

On the oil markets, Brent crude oil was up, trading at $US104.03 a barrel, by 10:24am AEST.

ABC/Reuters