Australian Market Significantly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Australian market is trading significantly higher on Thursday, reversing the losses in the previous session, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is moving up to near the 7,900 level, with gains across most sectors led by gold miners and technology stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 63.90 points or 0.82 percent to 7,892.20, after touching a high of 7,902.50 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 66.40 points or 0.82 percent to 8,121.70. Australian stocks ended notably lower on Wednesday.

Among major miners, Rio Tinto and BHP Group are edging down 0.4 to 0.5 percent each, while Fortescue Metals is losing more than 1 percent. Mineral Resources is edging up 0.1 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly higher. Santos and Origin Energy are gaining almost 1 percent each, while Beach energy is edging up 0.5 percent. Woodside Energy is edging down 0.2 percent.

In the tech space, Afterpay owner Block is gaining almost 4 percent, Appen is advancing more than 2 percent, Zip is up almost 1 percent, Xero is adding more than 1 percent and WiseTech Global is rising almost 2 percent.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ Banking are gaining more than 1 percent each, while National Australia Bank is adding almost 1 percent. Among gold miners, Newmont is edging up 0.3 percent and Northern Star Resources is gaining more than 2 percent, while Resolute Mining and Evolution Mining are advancing almost 2 percent each. Gold Road Resources is flat.

In corporate news, shares in Nanosonics are soaring amore than 14 percent after US regulators approved its cleaning tool designed to clean endoscopes used in hospitals and reduce infection risk.

Share in TPG Telecom are surging almost 5 percent after the competition watchdog gave it a green light to proceed with its $5.25 billion sale of its fibre networks to Vocus Group.

Shares in Arafura Rare Earths are jumping 13.5 percent after it secured a binding five-year offtake agreement to supply 100 tonnes per year of neodymium-praseodymium oxide to Luxembourg-based metals and minerals trader Traxys Europe SA.

In economic news, the unemployment rate in Australia came in at a seasonally adjusted 4.1 percent in February, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday - in line with expectations and unchanged from the January reading.

But the Australian economy lost 52,800 jobs last month, the bureau said, well shy of expectations for an increase of 30,800 jobs following the addition of 44,000 in January. Full-time employment was down 35,700 jobs following the addition of 54,100 a month earlier.

The participation rate was 66.8 percent, again missing forecasts for 67.3 percent - which would have been unchanged from the previous month.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.633 on Thursday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a strong move back to the upside during trading on Wednesday following the sharp pullback seen in the previous session. With the rally, the major averages largely offset Tuesday's steep losses.

The major averages pulled back off their best levels going into the close but remained sharply higher. The Nasdaq surged 246.67 points or 1.4 percent to 17,750.79, the S&P 500 jumped 60.63 points or 1.1 percent to 5,675.29 and the Dow climbed 383.32 points or 0.9 percent to 41,964.63.

Meanwhile, the major European markets ended the day mixed. While the German DAX Index fell 0.4 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index closed just above the unchanged line and the French CAC 40 Index climbed by 0.7 percent.

Crude oil prices closed higher on Wednesday amid continued uncertainty about growth due to the impact of U.S. tariffs on some of its major trading partners. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April closed higher by $0.26 or 0.39 percent at $67.16 a barrel.