Australian Market Slightly Lower

(RTTNews) - Australian shares are trading slightly lower on Wednesday, giving up some of the gains in the previous two sessions, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 staying well below the 7,800 level, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, with weakness in iron ore miners and energy stocks nearly offset by gains in gold miners, financial and technology stocks. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is losing 8.10 points or 0.10 percent to 7,753.60, after hitting a low of 7,750.50 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is down 7.10 points or 0.09 percent to 7,962.80. Australian stocks ended slightly higher on Tuesday.

Among major miners, BHP Group is losing almost 1 percent, Rio Tinto is edging down 0.3 percent, Mineral Resources is declining almost 4 percent and Fortescue Metals is down more than 1 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly lower. Woodside Energy and Santos are losing more than 1 percent each, while Beach energy is declining almost 1 percent. Origin Energy is edging up 0.3 percent.

In the tech space, Afterpay owner Block is gaining almost 1 percent, Appen is adding more than 1 percent, WiseTech Global are advancing more than 2 percent, Xero is edging up 0.5 percent and Zip is soaring almost 11 percent.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ Banking are edging up 0.4 percent each, while Westpac is gaining more than 1 percent and National Australia Bank is adding almost 1 percent.

Among gold miners, Evolution Mining, Gold Road Resources, Resolute Mining and Newmont are gaining more than 1 percent each, Northern Star Resources is edging up 0.3 percent.

In other news, shares in Star Entertainment are slipping almost 5 percent after its return from a months-long trading suspension while the group scrambled to secure a rescue deal.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.634 on Wednesday.

On the Wall Street, stocks continued to show a lack of direction over the course of the trading day on Tuesday after ending Monday's volatile session notably higher. The major averages bounced back and forth across the unchanged line before eventually closing modestly lower.

The Dow fell 155.83 points or 0.4 percent to 40,368.96, the S&P 500 dipped 9.34 points or 0.2 percent to 5,396.63 and the Nasdaq edged down 8.32 points or 0.1 percent to 16,823.17.

Meanwhile, the major European markets moved to the upside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index climbed by 0.9 percent, the German DAX Index and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index both jumped by 1.4 percent.