Aussie market grinds higher at Wednesday open

It's a slow grind higher for the Aussie market on Wednesday as resources stocks find some buying.

At the open on Wednesday, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was up 16.4 points, or 0.29 percent at 5,607.5 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index was up 15.5 points, or 0.27 percent at 5,655.5 points.

"It's a good day to be an equity bull, however, it's a slow grind higher as opposed to an explosion in demand and the moves we are seeing in many markets are fairly subdued," IG chief market strategist Chris Weston said in a note.

It's a calmer trade heading into Christmas / New Year period with fund managers having locked in their performance targets, and we "don't have the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) trade pushing cash into the market on literally any 0.5 percent drop," he said.

Thus with the commodity complex's quiet night -- despite spot iron ore down after catching up to futures prices -- the market is sure to close higher with better buying in resources stocks to firm support above 5600 points, which could open up a run to 5700 points by New Year, Weston said.

"We can see that investors and traders have been happy to buy the market from 10:30 (AEDT) of late which is positive, but also the index is neither overbought, over owned or over loved (if we look at market internals)," Weston said.

In early trade ANZ is up 0.63 percent, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia gained 0.40 percent, the National Australia Bank rose 0.46 percent and Westpac lifted 0.34 percent.

BHP Billiton rallied 0.64 percent, rival Rio Tinto bounced 1.35 percent,

Oil Search slipped 0.15 percent, however Santos added 0.25 percent while Woodside Petroleum edged 0.06 percent higher.

Wesfarmers and rival Woolworths are 0.43 and 0.42 percent stronger respectively.

Qantas climbed 0.45 percent while telecom giant Telstra fell 0.20 percent. Endit