Investing.com - Australian shares opened slightly higher on Wednesday, following a renewed rally in New York overnight as market participants slightly increase their expectations for a potential rate.
Tech giant Nvidia saw a significant leap of 7.2%, leading six of the 'magnificent seven' higher, while Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) also experienced a surge after its quarterly results surpassed forecasts.
The S&P 500 rose by 1.1% to 5175.27, a record closing high, just falling short of the intraday record high it achieved last week. The NYSE Fang + Index experienced a 2.2% lift, though Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) stumbled slightly towards the end of the session.
Shares of several companies, including Brambles Ltd (ASX:BXB), Data#3 Ltd (ASX:DTL), Downer Edi Ltd (ASX:DOW), Imdex Ltd (ASX:IMD), Pepper Money Ltd (ASX:PPM), and Perpetual Ltd (ASX:PPT), are all set to trade ex-dividend come Wednesday.
In the market highlights, ASX 200 Futures were up by 14 points or 0.2% to 7729 near 8am AEDT, the Australian dollar dipped slightly by 0.1% to 66.05 US cents, and Bitcoin dropped by 2% to $US70,664 at 8.08am AEDT.
On Wall Street, as of 4pm, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 0.6%, S&P by 1.1%, and NASDAQ Composite by 1.5%. In New York, several companies saw changes with BHP (ASX:BHP) Group Ltd ADR (NYSE:BHP) down by 0.2%, Rio Tinto ADR (NYSE:RIO) up by 1.2%, Atlassian Corp Plc (NASDAQ:TEAM) up by 0.8%, and Tesla down by 0.1%.
In terms of local data, the CBA household spending insights report will be released along with the monthly business turnover indicator. The Reserve Bank's head of payments policy, Ellis Connolly, is scheduled to speak at 10.30 am in Sydney. Overseas data will include Eurozone's January industrial production and the UK's monthly GDP.