What you need2know:

• SPI futures down 6 points

• AUD at 93.05 US cents, 95.74 Japanese yen, 69.85 Euro cents and 55.98 British pence

• On Wall St, S&P 500 +0.5%, Dow +0.5%, Nasdaq +0.4%

• In Europe, Euro Stoxx 50 +0.6%, FTSE +0.6%, CAC +0.6%, DAX +1%

• Spot gold down 0.3% to $US1295.05 an ounce

• Brent oil down 0.1%s to $US101.54 per barrel

• Iron ore slips 0.3% to $US93.00 per metric tonne

What’s on today

Wesfarmers, Woodside Petroleum, Ausenco, APN News & Media, AGL Energy, Challenger Financial, Seek, Fletcher Building, Coca-Cola Amatil, Brambles report earnings;

RBA governor Glenn Stevens testifies before House of Representatives standing committee on economics in Brisbane, Australian Q2 wage cost index, Westpac August consumer confidence index, Reserve Bank of New Zealand inflation expectations;

EU June industrial production, UK July jobless claims, US July advance retail sales, US FOMC meeting minutes.

Stocks to watch

Results are expected from APN News and Media, Fortescue Metals Group, Brambles, Wesfarmers, Coca-Cola Amatil, Challenger, Fletcher Building.

In London, BHP Billiton’s shares fell 5.9pc to 1965 pence. In late trading in New York, the miner’s shares were down 3.8pc to $US70.03.

Macquarie Group has urged any aggrieved clients who lost money in the initial public offering of the BrisConnections toll road in 2008 to raise their concerns following claims it allowed a select group of wealthy customers to pull out of the disastrous float.

Deutsche Bank has upgraded CSL to a “buy” recommendation with a $76.50 a share target price after it reported strong sales, despite increased competition.

Currencies

The US dollar rallied, benefiting from US economic data and the euro zone’s current account surplus in June. The euro dipped to a nine-month low of $US1.3314. The US dollar index rose 0.37 per cent to a high last seen nearly a year ago.

Investors await Wednesday's minutes from the July 29-30 Fed meeting, as well as Fed chair Janet Yellen's speech at the annual gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday.

"In the minutes, people will be looking for an exit strategy, but given data we have had, no one is expecting it to come sooner than previously expected. Fed futures are looking to September 2015 and expectations in the market come around that time frame, which is late 2015," said Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies LLC in New York.

Commodities

Aluminium prices rose on Tuesday, supported by a short-term shortage of available metal. Benchmark aluminium on the London Metal Exchange, climbed 1 per cent to close at $US2039 a tonne. Its forward curve is showing increasing signs of supply stress, with cash trading on Monday at its closest to parity against the benchmark three-month contract since December 2012.

Copper has rebounded from seven-week lows near $US6821 a tonne hit last week but momentum appears to be waning. Putting pressure on copper prices are expectations that higher supply will push the market into a deep surplus. “We expect a more concerted move down as supply bottlenecks ease at a time of subdued demand growth,” said Caroline Bain at Capital Economics, who expects prices to fall to $US6500 by the end of the year.

United States

US stocks advanced after solid earnings from Home Depot helped lift retailers’ shares and Apple touched $US100 for the first time since its stock split this summer. Data on housing and inflation gave the market more support.

Home Depot gained after he world’s largest home improvement retailer reported earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street’s expectations. Home Depot also raised its full-year profit forecast.

Groundbreaking for new housing jumped 15.7 per cent last month to a seasonally adjusted 1.09-million unit annual pace, the highest level since November, the Commerce Department said.

Europe

European shares extended the previous session’s rally on Tuesday, with Germany’s DAX index outperforming, driven by what traders saw as an easing of the Ukraine crisis.

The DAX has advanced by nearly 4 per cent in the past 10 days but is still down by some 7 per cent from its peak of 10,050.98 points set in late June. McLaren Securities’ managing director Terry Torrison said the DAX might rise to 9500 points by the end of August, if the Ukraine situation did not worsen.

The German equity market’s recent underperformance has dragged the average price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of domestic shares down to a level not seen since October 2013, according to data from Thomson Reuters Datastream.

What happened on Tuesday

A rally in mining heavyweight BHP Billiton’s shares ahead of its earnings report helped buoy the local market, offsetting Commonwealth Bank of Australia going ex-dividend.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 gained 36.7 points, or 0.7 per cent, to finish the day at 5623.8, chalking up a fourth straight session of gains