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Shares bounce on jobs data

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The share market has enjoyed its best gains in almost a month due to jobs figures that were good, but not too good to scuttle an expected Reserve Bank rate cut.

The All Ordinaries index gained 0.91 per cent in its best session since February 18, as the February unemployment rate eased to 6.3 per cent.

OptionsXpress analyst Ben Le Brun said the fall from January’s 6.4 per cent helped stocks that pay healthy dividends, particularly the banking and finance sector, as it was not enough to change expectations of another interest rate cut.

“We had stronger than expected jobs data here, which has reverberated quite nicely,” he said.

“But also the data wasn’t strong enough to forego any chance of a rate cut here over the next couple of months.

“So we’ve seen some of the high yielding names certainly back in vogue in this session.”

All four big banks made gains of more than one per cent, with Commonwealth Bank up $1.30 at $91.82, Westpac up 59 cents at $38.09, ANZ up 42 cents at $35.64 and National Bank was 44 cents stronger at $38.00.

Macquarie Group also rose, adding $2.52, or 3.4 per cent, to $76.60.

Telstra added seven cents to $6.29.

Mr Le Brun said an unexpected South Korean interest rate cut on Thursday pushed Asian share markets higher, which also helped the Australian market.

Miners were weaker, though, on weak commodity prices and the impact of a stronger US dollar.

“The strengthening US dollar is having a downward impact in anything denominated in US dollars – the likes of copper, gold, even iron ore, oil prices,” Mr Le Brun said.

BHP Billiton fell 13 cents to $30.20, Rio Tinto lost 37 cents to $57.50 and iron ore miner Fortescue Metals was 3.5 cents weaker at $1.915.

KEY FACTS

* At the close on Thursday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 57 points, or 0.98 per cent, at 5,850.2.

* The broader All Ordinaries index was up 52.7 points, or 0.91 per cent, at 5,816.0.

* The March share price index futures contract was up 60 points at 5,846 with 35,553 contracts traded.

* National turnover was 1.77 billion securities worth $5.3 billion.