Australian stocks are set to have a sharply lower open with the SPI down 55 points this morning. Both US and European stocks dropped sharply overnight amid rising geopolitical tensions over the possibility of a military strike against Syrian government forces. Wall Street stocks suffered their worst day since June with the S&P 500 down 1.59%, the Dow 1.14% lower and the Nasdaq plummeting 2.16% in last night's session. Safe haven commodities such as gold, on the other hand, have risen. The AUD is trading at US89.81c as at 09:00 AEST.