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The Australian sharemarket staged an unexpected recovery, with investors in the banks and financial sectors showing confidence despite ongoing debt market concerns.
At the 1615 AEST close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index finished 44.3 points higher at 6235.5 and the All Ordinaries had gained 39 points to 6248.6.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the September share price index contract was 32 points better ato 6258 on a volume of 24,799 contracts.
CMC Markets analyst David Land said today's rally was a strong one given the mixed signals from Wall Street overnight and then expectations this morning that the local market would head down.
"Much of this has been driven by the finance sector," Mr Land said.
"Notable amongst those, the big banks doing particularly well in the afternoon part of the session.
"We've also seen quite a bit of life in the insurers and fund managers doing well.
Mr Land said it was still too hard to tell how long today's confidence in the lenders would last as the fallout from the US sub-prime mortgage market continued.
That volatility would continue, he said.
"You do see some quite sharp up and down movements as the market reassesses these risks and how they're going to impact on these individual companies."
The big banks put on solid gains, with ANZ 20 cents up to $28.51, National Australia Bank improved 58 cents to $38.79, Commonwealth Bank of Australia was 98 cents richer to $55.33 and Westpac found 26 cents to $26.81.
At the close, BHP Billiton advanced 13 cents to $38.43 but Rio Tinto shed 21 cents to $98.07.
At 1625 AEST the spot price of gold was US$703.30 an ounce, up just US$0.20 an ounce on last night's close of US$703.10.
The gold miners were mostly worse, with Newmont Mining 10 cents lighter at $5.33 and Lihir Gold seven cents down to $3.30.
Newcrest Mining was still in a trading halt today at $24.80 following its announcement last night of a $2 billion capital restructure.
Shares in hospitals operator Healthscope and Symbion Health dipped after a proposed was rejected at a shareholders meeting today.
Symbion lost four cents to $4.19 while Healthscope shed seven cents to $5.78.
Primary Health Care, which blocked the deal with its 20 per cent stake in Symbion, also dipped three cents to $12.02.
In the energy sector oil and gas producer Woodside Petroleum gained 24 cents to $46.00 after confirming it is in talks to sell gas from the Browse project in Western Australia to CPC Corp of Taiwan.
Santos Ltd firmed 17 cents to $13.00 and Oil Search put on one cent to $3.70.
Overnight, US equity markets ended the session mixed, although most stocks fell on growth concerns following some bearish Federal Reserve Bank commentary.
The Dow Jones industrial average lifted 14.47 points to 13,127.85, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 1.85 points to 1,451.70.
The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 6.59 points to 2,559.11.
The retailers had more in their baskets today, with Coles nine cents heavier at $14.55, David Jones 16 cents better to $5.13 and Woolworths 34 cents ahead to $29.85.
In the media sector, PBL gained five cents to $18.45, News Corp cents added three cents to $27.23 but its non-voting shares lost three cents to $25.50.
Fairfax Media was down five cents to $4.40.
The telcos were up, with Telstra increasing seven cents $4.35 and Optus-owner Singapore Telecommunications up three cents to $2.88.
Airline stocks were flying in different directions, with Qantas one cent up to $5.62 and Virgin Blue two cents down to $2.09.
Empire Oil & Gas was the most traded stock on the market today with 186.6 million shares changing hands worth $5.3 million.
Its shares were 0.4 cents up at $0.03.
Preliminary market turnover was 1.83 billion shares, worth $5.25 billion, with 589 stocks up, 600 down and 349 unchanged.
- AAP