Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, said he was surprised to see such a strong Australasian performance considering the risks that come with rising tension between the US and China.
"Given the comments from the US Secretary of State saying they are considering removing Hong Kong's special trading status — this looks like escalation to me," he said.
McCarthy said trading volumes were lighter than usual as Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States were all on public holidays today.
"It may just be that there is a little bit of room for the bulls to move this morning," he said.
Oceania Healthcare led the local market higher, rising 3.8 per cent to 83 cents.
Grant Williamson, a director at Hamilton Hindin Greene, said the aged care provider started to gain last week and has built up some momentum.
"It was one stock that was hit extremely hard in the sell-off and maybe bargain hunters are just coming back for it," he said. Its share price is still down 36 per cent this year.
Z Energy rose 3.6 per cent bring it back up to its capital raising price of $2.90. Williamson said it was an encouraging sign for the fuel retailer who has yet to compete the retail portion of the capital raising.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare increased 3.3 per cent to $30.15 and A2 Milk rose 1 per cent to $19, although both on light volumes.
Kiwi Property Group rose 2.1 per cent to 96 cents. The company reported a net loss of $186.7 million as an already announced $290 million write-down in its property values hit the bottom line. The property investor said retail traffic at its shopping malls has recovered under level 2 restrictions, and was down just 8 per cent from a year earlier.
Williamson said the net loss was no surprise to the market, with investors taking the result as good news.
Infratil increased 1.3 per cent to $4.77. Tilt Renewables, which is controlled by Infratil, rose 0.3 per cent to $3.15 after reporting a net profit of A$478.4m ($512.6m) as the wind farm developer benefited from the sale of a wind farm for a A$486m gain. Tilt shareholders will vote to approve a capital return next month.
Air New Zealand rose 0.8 per cent to $1.255. It extended its schedule of minimal international operations by another two months to August 31. Overall international capacity is down around 95 per cent.
Auckland International Airport also rose, gaining 3.1 per cent at $5.98.
Sky Network Television today completed the first phase of a capital raising, bringing in $119.2m from investors to shore up its balance sheet. The television network's shares dropped 48.2 per cent to 17.1 cents when trading resumed, still comfortably above the 12-cent placement offer.
"Obviously, the company is still in a pretty depressed state and existing holders and investors will be hoping this capital raise will be what turns around the performance of the company," Williamson said.
