The share market has posted just its third gain for the year as bargain hunters snapped up high growth health and telecommunication stocks.
But traders expect Thursday’s rise of about 0.40 per cent may be a temporary pause amid a slide on most major world markets.
With the exception of the financial and property sectors, most stocks rallied after an apparent turnaround in sentiment during Wall Street’s session.
IG market analyst Angus Nicholson said investors were buoyed by the late bounce on Wall Street, which prevented deep losses for US equities.
“When Wall Street bottomed and then started to turn around mid-session, we saw (Australia’s) SPI futures move up fairly strongly,” he said.
“There has been a huge sell off so it looks like a bit of short covering and some bargain hunting is going on which means this could be a temporary bounce.”
Investors favoured high growth stocks, including the health and telecommunications sectors.
Telstra added 14 cents, or 2.6 per cent, to $5.52 and medical giant CSL gained $1.87, or 1.8 per cent, to $107.57.
Retailers, particularly Woolworths and Coles owner Wesfarmers, also performed strongly, with Woolworths adding 30 cents to $23.88 and Wesfarmers up $1.10 to $41.15.
Despite further falls in commodity prices, mining and energy stocks held up, with Rio Tinto adding 61 cents to $38.36, BHP slipping one cent to $14.20 and Origin Energy rose 23 cents to $3.69.
Woodside Petroleum lost 39 cents to $25.00 after flagging massive writedowns due to weaker oil prices.
The major banks were mixed, with the Commonwealth Bank down 80 cents at $76.81, ANZ down 39 cents at $23.11 and Westpac down 17 cents at $29.89, while National Australia Bank added eight cents to $26.82.
KEY FACTS:
* At the close the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 22.5 points, or 0.46 per cent, at 4,864 points.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was up 20.7 points, or 0.42 per cent, at 4,917.6 points.
* The March share price index futures contract was up 14 points at 4,816, with 46,039 contracts traded.
* The price of gold in Sydney at 1700 AEDT was $US1,103.30 per fine ounce, up $US12.10 on Wednesday’s price of $US1,091.20.
* National turnover was 1.9 billion securities traded worth $5.3 billion.
