After a rocky start, the ASX 200 is making gains and Wall Street is responding positively to Evergrande's pledge to make bond interest payments.

In early trade, the ASX 200 was down 0.3 per cent.

That was following mixed trade on Wall Street, the possibility of US tapering, and the ongoing woes of Chinese property developer Evergrande.

But by 1:30pm AEST, the ASX 200 had turned the game around and was up a comfortable 0.8 per cent.

That came as Evergrande told the market that it will make a bond interest payment this week, after a Chinese annual holiday.

Shares in the Hong Kong-listed company had dived on open this morning but it is now recovering in morning (local time) trade. It is currently down just 0.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, Dow Jones futures also rose on the news.

The offshore yuan was also rebounding as the People's Bank of China boosted liquidity to avert a potential systemic credit crunch.

Evergrande will survive 'darkest moment'

Evergrande's pledge to pay bond interest payments came after its director tried to soothe the market as well.

In an effort to revive battered confidence in the firm, Evergrande's chairman Hui Ka Yuan said in a letter to staff the company was confident it would "walk out of its darkest moment" and deliver property projects as pledged.

Yet Mr Hui did not elaborate how that would be achieved.

Shares in other Chinese property stocks were still being rattled on Wednesday by the saga. However, the real estate index had started to rise by 3 per cent after starting down nearly 2 per cent. China's banking sub-index was down nearly 3 per cent.

"We are uncertain of how far and how strong the ripple effect would be on the housing market and the developer industry,” analysts at Deutsche Bank said in a recent note. 

“We think investors should remain on the sideline until there is more clarity.”

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NAB analysts said initial catastrophic fears over the Evergrande saga were overstated.

"Market sentiment remains fragile ahead of the (Federal Reserve meeting) and also ahead of Evergrande’s interest payments on two bonds worth $119.5m, due on Thursday," they said.

This all came after a mixed trade in the US. The Dow Jones and S&P 500 were both near flat, however the Nasdaq finished 0.2 per cent up, with gains by the likes of Tesla (1.26pc), Apple (0.3pc) and Facebook (0.5pc).

Other headline agendas that could influence the market include a looming meeting by the US Federal Reserve.

It is set to meet in the next 24 hours, where it could possibly move to taper economic stimulus brought in during the pandemic.

Energy stocks dominating ASX 200

Strong performers on Wednesday afternoon on the ASX 200 included energy stocks.

The top performer in early afternoon trade was iron ore company Champion Iron with a 6.8 per cent gain turning around losses earlier in the week.

There had been fears that the collapse of Evergrande could have wider ramifications on the construction industry in China, which relies heavily on Australia's biggest export.

Benchmark iron ore futures also slumped on Friday as Beijing considered including more cities in its environmental controls.

Rio Tinto is also up 2.8 per cent, BHP up 2.4 per cent, and Fortescue is up 5.5 per cent.

Other performers on the ASX 200 in afternoon trade included energy stocks Worley (+5.7pc), Viva (+2.9pc), Beach (+5.3pc) and AGL (+3.3pc).

Drags on the market included Premier Investments with a loss of 4.6 per cent.

China to stop funding overseas coal-fired power stations

In some other major news to come out of the UN General Assembly, Chinese president Xi Jinping has said the super power would stop building coal-fired power plants overseas.  

Environmental activists have hailed the move, because China currently supports more than half the coal power projects in pre-development in other countries.

The president said that, instead, China would step up its support for developing nations to build green and low-carbon energy.  

South Korea and Japan have also pledged to stop building coal-fired power stations overseas.  

Commodities steady

ANZ analysts noted today that commodity markets had stabilised after a heavy sell-off on Monday, although price performance "varied across sectors". 

"Energy gained some ground with prices inching higher for oil, gas and coal," the analysts said.

"Precious metals benefitted from safe-haven demand and the weaker US dollar."

Gold is down 0.2 per cent, to $US3.10.

In other news, Disney has lost 4.1 per cent after its boss announced that the resurgence of COVID-19 was delaying the production of some of its TV shows.

More to come.

ABC/Wires