Australia shares jump

Australian stocks jumped 1.4 percent to close at a 3-1/2 week high, with the miners leading solid gains across the board at the same time as the Aussie dollar hit a 29-year peak, but light volumes suggested there was little conviction behind the buying.
The market has climbed nearly 300 points with gains in eight of the past nine sessions, breaking through key technical resistance around 4,805, which was a positive sign. Top miners BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto both ended more than 2 percent higher.
Gold miners posted strong gains, despite gold prices having retreated off record highs. Newcrest Mining, Australia's biggest gold miner, jumped 3.7 percent to close at A$39.93 after a mistyped order in the morning saw its shares drop to a low of A$37.50. The gains in Newcrest may have been due to positive comments from its partner Harmony Gold Mining on cost cuts at their Hidden Valley mine in Papua New Guinea, said Ben Lyons, an analyst at ATI Asset Management. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index gained 66.4 points to finish at 4,822.2, the highest close since March 4. New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index rose 0.4 percent to 3,433.2. The big banks all rose between 0.8 pecent and 1.6 percent, while defensives like grocer Woolworths and phone company Telstra also rose more than 1 percent.