Australian shares tracked Wall Street higher on Thursday with banks and miners leading the gain, while US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on seven countries after earlier this week imposing 25% tariffs on Japan and other trade partners.
The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.6% to 8,587.70 by 0038 GMT.
The benchmark ended 0.6% lower on Wednesday. Wall Street ended higher overnight, lifted by the tech-heavy Nasdaq as Nvidia briefly touched a $4 trillion valuation.
“The market is taking lead from Wall Street’s rebound overnight where investors are shrugging off the tariff volatility to buy into growth and undervalued sectors of the market,” said Grady Wulff, a senior market analyst at Bell Direct.
Meanwhile, minutes of the Federal Reserve’s mid-June meeting fuelled hopes that inflation pressures from Trump’s tariffs would not derail interest rate cuts this year.
Trump said on social media that more tariff letters to other countries would drop later on Wednesday, but gave no details. Australia faces a 10% “baseline” tariff — the minimum rate imposed on all US trading partners.
Financials led gains on the benchmark index, rising 0.7%.
The “Big Four” banks were up between 0.4% and 1%. Gold stocks jumped 1.6% after a sharp drop on Wednesday, as gold prices inched higher.
Evolution Mining and Genesis Minerals were up 2.2% and 1.4%, respectively. Mining stocks advanced 0.9% on the back of strong iron ore prices. BHP was up 0.3%, while Rio Tinto and Fortescue gained 0.7% and 1.5%, respectively.
Energy stocks were up 0.5%. Oil and gas firm Woodside Energy rose 0.5%, while Santos advanced 0.7%.
Technology stocks tracked their overseas peers higher and were last up 0.6%.
NEXTDC climbed 1%, while Block Inc’s Australia-listed shares advanced 2.2%.
New Zealand’s benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index rose 0.1% to 12,781.52, a day after the central bank held interest rates steady at 3.25%.
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