The domestic stock market is rising for a second day, hitting a one-week high in daily trading ahead of an important Federal Reserve meeting.
At midday AEDT Wednesday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index rose 63.5 points, or 0.91 per cent, to 7,018.9 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index rose 62.1 points, or 0.87 per cent, to 7,204.3 points.
Sentiment has turned risk-on as traders bet on a dovish shift from the Fed, writes Tina Teng, analyst at CMC Markets APAC & Canada.
The US central bank will release its latest ruling on raising interest rates at 5 a.m. EST on Thursday, a decision that has been described as the most significant of Chairman Jerome Powell’s career. The market has priced in an 86 percent chance of a 25 basis point rate hike and a 13 percent chance of a pause, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
Every ASX sector was higher at midday except for interest rate-sensitive real estate, which was down 0.8 per cent.
Energy was the biggest gainer, rising 3.7 percent as Brent crude rebounded to a three-day high of $75 a barrel.
Woodside rose by 4.8 percent, Santos by three percent, and Ampol by 2.4 percent.
The heavyweight financials rose 1.7 percent with solid gains for all four of the big banks after Fitch reaffirmed its + rating late Tuesday.
CBA rose 1.8 percent, ANZ rose 1.6 percent, and Westpac and ANZ both rose 1.4 percent.
Shares of insurers Suncorp and QBE rose just over three percent while IAG earned a little less than that.
In the mining-heavy sector, BHP advanced 0.4 percent, Fortescue rose 1.8 percent, and Rio Tinto rose 0.6 percent.
Gold miners fell amid the shift in sentiment, with Northern Star down 3.1 percent and Newcrest down 1.7 percent.
Latitude Group fell 7.1 percent to $1.12 as shares in the personal finance company resumed trading for the first time since a major breach of its customer data was discovered last week.
The Australian dollar was long at 66.81 US cents, from 66.90 US cents at the ASX close on Tuesday.
DISCLAIMER:- Denial of responsibility! olorinews.com is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email at loginhelponline@gmail.com The content will be deleted within 24 hours.