Australian stocks have rallied for the first time in five sessions after the big banks rebounded, US futures turned higher and consumer confidence hit a 19-month peak.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was eight points or 0.2% higher at 4387 after gains in utilities +0.9%, property trusts +0.9% and financials +0.6% outweighed declines in gold -1%, energy -0.8%, industrials -0.5% and metals & mining -0.2%. The rally marked the first advance since the start of a four-day pullback that had stripped 144 points from the XJO at this morning's low.
Risk appetite received a boost from the strongest monthly consumer confidence reading since April last year. The MI-WBC index of consumer sentiment improved 5.2% this month to 104.3.
"After a long 16-month period when the index held below 100 for 14 of those months, we are finally starting to see that the Reserve Bank's 150-basis points of interest rate cuts is having an impact," Westpac chief economist Bill Evans told Fairfax.
Pay rates increased slightly less than expected last quarter. Total hourly rates increased a seasonally-adjusted 0.7% for year-on-year rise in the wage price index of 3.7%.
US futures were cautiously positive following tentative gains in Asia. Dow futures were recently up 28 points or more than 0.2%. Shanghai put on 0.01%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 0.56% and Japan's Nikkei 0.17%.
Crude oil futures inched up seven cents this morning to US$85.24 a barrel. Spot gold was $2.20 stronger at US$1,727.50 an ounce. The dollar was buying $US1.0445.
Any rally is better than what we've endured for the last week, but today's action is not too convincing. Subject to new developments, it may take a couple of days of base-building before there's any real bounce. I was hamstrung by software problems early on but eventually squeezed a few pips out of AIO and ILU. Exited GPT from yesterday for brokerage. Annoyed at missing COK at 11. Speculator in JMS paid off.
