Australian Market Slightly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is slightly higher on Wednesday, extending the slight gains in the previous session, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 staying above the 7,300 level, despite the broadly negative cues from global markets overnight, boosted by gains in financial stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 10.00 points or 0.14 percent to 7,321.10, after hitting a low of 7,323.10 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is down 6.40 points or 0.09 percent to 7,526.10. Australian stocks ended slightly higher on Tuesday.

Among major miners, Rio Tinto and BHP Group are edging down 0.1 to 0.2 percent each, while Mineral Resources is edging up 0.1 percent and Fortescue Metals is declining almost 1 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly lower. Origin Energy and Woodside Energy are edging down 0.2 to 0.4 percent each, while Beach energy is losing almost 3 percent. Santos is edging up 0.1 percent.

In the tech space, Zip is gaining 2.5 percent, Xero is adding almost 1 percent and WiseTech Global is edging up 0.3 percent, while Afterpay owner Block is declining almost 2 percent. Appen is flat. Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank is gaining more than 2 percent after reporting a record annual profit of $10.2 billion and boosted dividend, ANZ Banking is edging up 0.1 percent, National Australia Bank is advancing more than 1 percent and Westpac is adding almost 1 percent.

Among gold miners, Evolution Mining and Gold Road Resources are edging up 0.3 percent each, while Resolute Mining is losing almost 3 percent, Northern Star Resources is edging down 0.5 percent and Newcrest Mining is down almost 1 percent.

In other news, shares in Syrah Resources are surging more than 7 percent after the miner inked a deal with Samsung SDI for evaluation of natural graphite active anode supply.

Shares in Suncorp Bank slipped almost 3 percent after the insurer announced that annual profit surged nearly 69 percent, but missed analysts' estimates.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.653 on Wednesday.

On the Wall Street, stocks recovered gradually on Tuesday after a weak start and a subsequent sharp fall, but still ended the day's session in negative territory.

The major averages all ended notably lower, but well off the session's lows. The Dow ended the day with a loss of 158.64 points or 0.45 percent at 35,314.49, the S&P 500 settled with a loss of 19.06 points or 0.42 percent at 4,499.38, and the Nasdaq ended with a loss of 110.07 points or 0.79 percent at 13,884.32.

The major European markets also moved to the downside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index fell by 0.36 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index tumbled by 1.1 percent and 0.69 percent, respectively.

Crude oil prices settled higher on Tuesday following an upgrade to this year's GDP growth projections in the U.S. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September ended higher by $0.98 at $82.92 a barrel.