Australian stocks higher following Wall Street rally

Stocks in Australia traded higher Wednesday morning following an overnight bounce on Wall Street.

The benchmark ASX 200 advanced 0.2 percent in early trade, as the energy sector advanced 1.38 percent while materials fell 0.21 percent.

The heavily weighted financial subindex rose 0.81 percent with the shares of Australia's so-called Big Four banks seeing gains. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group rose 1.44 percent, Commonwealth Bank of Australia gained 0.57 percent and National Australia Bank advanced 0.92 percent and Westpac traded fractionally higher.

Meanwhile, futures pointed to a higher open for the Nikkei 225 in Japan. The Nikkei futures contract in Chicago was at 21,700 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 21,640. The index last closed at 21,457.29.

China is set to release figures for an important economic indicator later today, with the official Purchasing Managers' Index out at 9 a.m. HK/SIN.

Overnight on Wall Street, stocks jumped higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by 431.72 points to close at 24,874.64 while the S&P 500 rose around 1.57 percent to finish at 2,682.63. The Nasdaq Composite also saw gains of 1.58 percent to end the trading day at 7,161.65.

The moves in the U.S. followed a shaky start to the week in the prior session that saw stocks giving up sharp gains. Market participants cited the possibility of more U.S.-China tariffs, a drop in tech stocks and worries over higher interest rates for the decline.

Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that the U.S. is taking on too much debt right now, and that the problem will only worsen moving forward as more baby boomers retire and spending on retirement and health care programs increase.

"If I had a magic wand, I would raise taxes and cut retirement spending," Yellen told CNBC's Steve Liesman at the Charles Schwab Impact conference in Washington, D.C., who characterized the U.S. debt path as "unsustainable."

The U.S. fiscal deficit rose to $779 billion in fiscal 2018, up 17 percent from the previous fiscal year.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 97.011 following a rally from the 96.6. handle yesterday.

The Japanese yen was at 113.05 against the dollar after weakening from levels around 112.3 in the previous session. The Australian dollar traded at $0.7101, strengthening from levels just below $0.706 seen yesterday.

Here is a look at the economic data being released in the trading day ahead: