SYDNEY: Australian shares finished higher on Monday in a choppy session as firmer job advertisement numbers and prospects of first batches of a Covid-19 vaccine by early next year outweighed the extension of virus-driven lockdowns in Melbourne.
Investors took some solace from the government's deal with CSL to manufacture two vaccines - one developed by rival AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and another developed in CSL's own labs with the University of Queensland.
Sentiment was also buoyed to a degree after job ads rose for a third straight month in August, though economists remained cautious about the outlook for jobs.
The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.3% to 5,944.8 at the close of trade, after starting the session in negative territory.
Miners ended 2% higher after iron ore futures jumped on a recovery in downstream steel demand, with an added boost from gold stocks.
Global miners BHP Group and Rio Tinto climbed 2.4% and 2.5%, respectively.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking Corp led gains among financials, rising 1% and 1.9%, respectively.
Consumer and industrial stocks were the biggest drags on the benchmark, with Transurban Group slipping 2.8% and Woolworths easing 1.3%.
New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index rose 0.3% to finish the session at 11,859.45.
Local shares of Westpac and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group both added 1.5% each. "I definitely think the vaccine will be a very big boost in terms of confidence that will mean we can start reopening the economy," said James Tao, analyst at CommSec.
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