Australia shares rise as tech stocks track Wall Street peers higher

Australian shares rose on Wednesday, led by technology stocks as they mirrored sharp gains among their Wall Street peers overnight, while strong domestic earnings reports also boosted sentiment.

The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.4% to 6,846.60 by 0110 GMT, with gains across the board. The benchmark slid 0.6% on Tuesday.

Overnight, the tech-heavy Nasdaq hit a record high for the fifth session in a row, boosted by gains in tech giants Apple, Amazon.com and Alphabet.

This helped Australia's technology sector gain over 2%, with Afterpay rising 2.3% and Wisetech advancing 1.8%.

Shares of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) jumped as much as 1.2%, after the country's largest lender declared a higher dividend than from six months ago as it beat first-half cash profit estimates.

The stock, however, later erased all gains to fall more than 1%.

The heavyweight financial index gained as much as 2%, helped by Insurance Australia Group's near 6% jump, its biggest intraday percentage rise in 10 months, after the insurer posted better-than-expected half yearly core earnings.

Gold stocks strengthened nearly 2%, buoyed by Northern Star Resources' over 5% gain, after the gold miner reported a 46% rise in half-year net profit attributable and declared an interim dividend of 9.5 Australian cents per share.

The energy sub-index gained over 1%, boosted by stronger oil prices. Oil prices rose on Tuesday for a seventh straight session to hit a 13-month high.

Viva Energy advanced about 6%, while Origin Energy added 1.8%.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index slipped 0.4% to 12,876.65.

Top losers were Meridian Energy and Restaurant Brands New Zealand, falling 3.7% and 2.4%, respectively.