Banks and discretionary retailers lead Australian shares higher

PEXA

06/02/2025 24:12

Feb 6 (Reuters) - 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  .AXJO  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  .DJI  rose 0.71%, the S&P 500  .SPX 
gained 0.39%, while Nasdaq  .IXIC  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  .AXFJ , which added 1.2%. The so-called "Big
Four" banks added between 1.2% and 1.8%.
    Discretionary retailers  .AXDJ  climbed 1.6%, with the country's biggest non-food retail
group, Wesfarmers  WES.AX , jumping 2.5%. 
    Real estate stocks  .AXRE  also rose 1.6%.
    The heavyweight mining index  .AXMM  added 0.4%. Copper prices climbed to their highest in
more than a week on Wednesday.  MET/L 
    Chinese iron ore futures  DCIOcv1  on the Dalian Commodity Exchange also rose 0.7%.
    The domestic gold sub-index  .AXGD  jumped as much as 2.2% to reach its all-time high after
gold prices continued their record run.  GOL/ 
    Energy stocks  .AXEJ  were the only outlier, falling 0.6%, after oil prices fell more than
2% overnight.  O/R 
    Beach Energy  BPT.AX  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  PXA.AX  tumbled 4% after the digital property
settlements platform raised its impairment loss forecast range.
    Local shares of News Corp  NWS.AX  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.


             

 (Reporting by Himanshi Akhand in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
 ((Himanshi.Akhand@thomsonreuters.com))
 
((For more information on DIARIES & DATA:
 U.S. earnings diary   RESF/US   
 Wall Street Week Ahead    .N/O 
 Global Economy Week Ahead  DATA/ 
................................................................
For latest top breaking news across all markets           NEWS1 ))