Australian shares tracked Wall Street to rise on Thursday, with financial stocks and consumer discretionary firms leading the charge after investor jitters about a global trade war started to fade.
The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.9% to 8,490.7 points as of 2350 GMT. The benchmark closed 0.5% higher on Wednesday.
Overnight, the U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.71%, the S&P 500 gained 0.39%, while Nasdaq added 0.19%.
Investors looked past comments from President Donald Trump that the U.S. would like to take over the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and develop it economically.
Worries of escalating global trade war also ebbed following China’s relatively restrained response to Trump’s 10% tariffs.
In Sydney, gains were led by financial stocks, which added 1.2%. The so-called “Big Four” banks added between 1.2% and 1.8%.
Discretionary retailers climbed 1.6%, with the country’s biggest non-food retail group, Wesfarmers, jumping 2.5%.
Australian shares rise on commodity boost; US-China trade war stays in focus
Real estate stocks also rose 1.6%.
The heavyweight mining index added 0.4%. Copper prices climbed to their highest in more than a week on Wednesday.
Chinese iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange also rose 0.7%.
The domestic gold sub-index jumped as much as 2.2% to reach its all-time high after gold prices continued their record run.
Energy stocks were the only outlier, falling 0.6%, after oil prices fell more than 2% overnight.
Beach Energy dropped as much as 4.6% after its half-year profit and dividend missed expectations and was the top loser on the benchmark index.
Among other individual stocks, PEXA Group tumbled 4% after the digital property settlements platform raised its impairment loss forecast range.
Local shares of News Corp jumped 4.5% to become the top gainer on the benchmark index after its second-quarter results beat analysts’ estimates.
Markets in New Zealand were closed for a public holiday.
Source: Brecorder
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