Wall Street barely managed to close at a fresh record, following a key Trump administration official's denials that he considered quitting.
What happened on Wall St?
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson publicly denied reports he thought about resigning, and said he committed to President Donald Trump's agenda.
Mr Tillerson's tenure has been dogged with rumours that he is unhappy with Mr Trump's rhetoric and policies.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes reversed their early morning trading losses, as it seems investors' concerns about further turmoil in the Trump administration have been allayed.
The concern is that if Mr Tillerson quits — and becomes the latest casualty of the administration's revolving-door appointments — it could weigh on Mr Trump's efforts to push through his pro-economic growth agenda and corporate tax cuts.
Essentially, what is driving Wall Street's bull market is investors' optimism that these policies will eventually be implemented.
At Wednesday's close of trade, the US market's trading gains could be considered slight at best.
The Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices rose by around 0.1 per cent, while the Nasdaq was flat.
Nevertheless, it was the third straight session of record closing highs for those Wall Street indices.
The US market's gains were hampered by an overnight drop in oil prices, which weighed on the energy sector (-0.1pc).
This was in addition to technology stocks posting their first fall in seven trading sessions — down by 0.2 per cent.
In economic news, the number of new private-sector jobs in America grew by 135,000 in September, figures from ADP and Moody's revealed.
This result was higher than expected, as Reuters-polled economists were only expecting a gain of 125,000, particularly after the devastation caused by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
However, it is still a sharp decline from the August result (228,000 new private sector jobs), as well as being the smallest increase in 11 months.
Australian market
ASX SPI 200 futures rose by 0.3 per cent, which indicates the local share market may open higher.
The Australian dollar has risen slightly — by 0.3 per cent to 78.6 US cents.
Also, the retail sales and trade balance figures for August will be released by the Bureau of Statistics today.
It is expected that retail sales will rise by 0.3 per cent, according to a panel of economists polled by Reuters.
But ANZ's Felicity Emmett was more pessimistic, forecasting a 0.2 per cent drop in retail sales.
"Retail sales will likely be weak, but we do not think this weakness will be sufficient to derail the RBA's rising confidence in the domestic economy," she wrote.
"As such, we expect the Australian dollar to remain well supported at current levels."
As for what the trade surplus might be, the Deutsche Bank is expecting some gains.
"They [the bank's economists] expect the trade surplus to print around $800 million, up from $460 million last month, helped by higher non-rural commodity prices in the month," the wrote in a note ahead of the data.
