The Australian share market has continued to trade higher despite two of the big four banks going ex-dividend.
OptionsXpress market analyst Ben Le Brun said a positive lead from overseas markets and a rebound in the resources sector had helped counter the negative impact on the market of the ANZ and National Australia Bank trading ex-dividend.
“We’ve seen a little bit of a rebound in the materials space (resources) – it looks like some iron ore stocks were oversold yesterday,” Mr Le Brun said.
“And matching those gains is the performance of the energy space, which is quite surprising given that we saw a pull-back in the oil price last night.
“A lot of that looks like it is related to chatter surrounding Woodside Petroleum potentially expanding its asset base, possibly through Apache Energy’s auction of international assets that they have on the table at the moment.”
At 1200 AEDT, in the resources sector, global miner BHP Billiton was 45 cents richer at $34.23, and Rio Tinto was up 49 cents at $60.49.
Iron ore miners were up after Thursday’s pullback due to weaker iron ore prices.
Fortescue Metals was up 5.5 cents at $3.085, Atlas Iron added one cent to 23.5 cents, and BC Iron gained four cents to 88 cents.
Among the major banks, ANZ reversed 92 cents to $32.68, and National Australia Bank dumped $1.11 at $33.07.
Commonwealth Bank was up 81 cents at $82.00, and Westpac gained 35 cents to $34.76.
Broadcaster Ten surged 2.5 cents, or 10.87 per cent, to 25.5 cents on the back of continued speculation that it was a takeover target.
On Wall Street on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 69.94 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 17,554.47 points.
KEY FACTS
* At 1207 AEDT on Friday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 24.6 points, or 0.45 per cent, at 5,530.7 points.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was up 26.2 points, or 0.48 per cent, at 5,505.4 points.
* The December share price index futures contract was 40 points higher at 5,535 ponts, with 18,450 contracts traded.
* National turnover was 644.5 million securities worth $2.1 billion.