Wall Street stocks are up on Tuesday, lifted by a number of strong corporate results. Both Kraft Foods - the new owner of Cadbury - and drugs firm Merck reported a rise in quarterly profits.
The Dow Jones Index is up 117 points, or 1.2%, to 10,216 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 22 points, or 2%, to 2206.
Earlier in Europe: the FTSE in London was up 69 points, or 1.32%, to 5236, the CAC-40 is up 42 points, or 1.17%, to 3651 and the DAX in Frankfurt was up 68 points, or 1.23%, to 5579.
The Australian 200 Index closed up 22 points, or 0.5%, to 4568.
The NZX 50 closed up 28 points, or 0.9%, to 3088.
At 8.20am on Wednesday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 70.62 US cents, 78.36 Australian cents, 44.73 pence, 63.62 yen and 0.5152 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 65.04.
Brent crude oil was trading at $US74.98 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1116.10 per ounce.
