Stocks have risen on Wall Street on Tuesday on better earnings from industrial stocks such as Emerson Electric and Cummins.
The Dow Jones index was up 103 points to 10,170 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 17 points at 2164.
In Europe: the FTSE 100 index in London was up 0.7, the CAC-40 in Paris was up 1.3% and the DAX in Frankfurt was up 1%.
Earlier, in Toyko, the Nikkei was up 166 points to 10,371.
The Australian 200 Index was 81 points at 4605.
The NZX 50 was down 4 points to close at 3147 on turnover of $47 million.
At 6.30am on Wednesday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 71.20 US cents, 80.40 Australian cents, 44.52 pence, 64.29 yen and 0.5096 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 65.52.
Brent crude oil was trading at $US74.17 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1117.80 per ounce.
