Investing.com - Asian shares gained on Wednesday off a record Wall Street finish and with regional sentiment upbeat.
Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.78% and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.54%. In Australia, three of the country's so-called Big Four banks traded lower.
Shares of ANZ fell 0.32%, Westpac was off by 0.34% and the National Australia Bank lost 0.23%. Commonwealth Bank shares, however, were up 0.41%.
In Greater China, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.50% and the Hang Seng index gained 0.85%.
Markets were geared for Fed meetings later in the day for more insight on the rate path in 2018.
With Fed minutes from the November meeting due, analysts do not expect anything in the comments to dissuade market participants from assigning a high likelihood of a December rate hike.
"In turn, we would not be surprised to see officials beginning to discuss potentially major changes to elements of its operating framework that could include the inflation target or other related strategies such as price level targeting," according to an analyst note.
Former Fed chair Bernanke has also recently weighed in on this topic, arguing in favor of temporary price level targeting if the fed funds rate hits the effective lower bound in the future.
Overnight, the S&P 500 gained 0.7% to finish at 2,599.03 — an all-time high— with information technology as the best-performing sector. The index also broke above 2,600 for the first time during the session.
The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 160.50 points to close at 23,590.83, a record. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 1.1% to an all-time high of 6,862.48.