News: XEJ Australia shares track Wall Street higher, miners boost

Aug 4 (Reuters) - Australian shares rose on Wednesday, following Wall Street's upbeat session overnight, as local miners gained on higher iron ore prices.

The S&P/ASX 200 index (xjo) rose nearly 0.4% to 7,503.9 points.

Elsewhere, Nikkei .N225 was down 0.36% and S&P 500 E-minis futures EScv1 slipped 0.18%. The S&P 500 index .SPX closed at record high on Tuesday on gains in Apple Inc AAPL.O and healthcare stocks.

Australia's miners .AXMM rose 1.6% to lead gains on the benchmark index, as iron ore prices jumped 2% on hopes of strong demand.

Leading gains, Pilbara Minerals Ltd (PLS) rose 4.1%, followed by Mineral Resources Ltd (MIN) , which climbed 3.5​%.

The country's major miners, BHP Group (BHP) , Rio Tinto (RIO) and Fortescue Metals (FMG) , rose between 1% and 2%.

Aussie energy firms .AXEJ followed with a 0.75% gain, led by Whitehaven Coal Ltd (WHC) , up 2.8%, and Energy Ltd (BPT) , which rose 1​%.

Putting a damper on sentiment was a warning by authorities that a lockdown in state capital Brisbane might be extended beyond Sunday if people flout the tough restrictions, after a further rise in COVID-19 cases in Queensland state on Wednesday.

Financial stocks .AXFJ rose 0.5% with Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) , Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) , National Australia Bank (NAB) and Westpac Banking Corp (WBC) rising between 0.3% and 0.7%.

The retail sub-index .AXSJ also gained 0.5%, with A2 Milk (A2M) rising 1.7%.

Jefferies said it expected the country's retailers to report robust annual results on strong demand and raised its PT on a number of firms, including Woolworths (WOW) and Coles Group (COL) .

On the other hand, tech stocks .AXIJ dipped 0.13% after a two-day rally that saw the sub-index gain about 11%. Buy-now-pay-later juggernaut Afterpay (APT) rose nearly 1%.

In New Zealand, the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index (nz50) gained 0.3% at 12,738.3.