The Australian sharemarket notched up a second day of gains as banks, Transurban and CSL helped lift the index above 6100 points.

The S&P/ASX200 Index rose 49.4 points, or 0.8per cent, to 6112.6 after Wall Street posted its best session in two months and the technology-laden Nasdaq Composite strode to a record high above 12,000 points.

Bank stocks underwrote Thursday's rally on hopes the economic recovery will gain traction in the third and fouth quarters. Commonwealth gained 0.8 per cent and Westpac added 1.6 per cent.

Other blue chip gainers included CSL (up 1.3 per cent), Transurban (up 3.3 per cent) and Woolworths (up 0.9 per cent).

Among the laggards, BHP fell 2.3 per cent and Spark Infrastructure lost 6.6 per cent after both traded ex-dividend.

High profile tech stocks had a bad session. Cloud accounting software provider Xero fell 2.5 per cent after founder Rod Drury took part in a $200 million selldown on Wednesday.

Street Talk also reported that a $100 million block of stock traded today. Xero shares hit a record closing high of $103 on Wednesday.

Bigtincan fell 7.4 per cent after Regal Funds Management declared it had cut its stake to 11.3 per cent from 12.6 per cent.

Buy now pay later stocks were mixed after taking a beating on news PayPal would launch a rival product in the US. Afterpay gained 1.6 per cent, while Sezzle fell 3.9 per cent.

WiseTech gained 1.1 per cent after founder Richard White sold $60 million worth of shares.

Sky City Entertainment added 7.4 per cent after saying earnings would be higher in the 2021 financial year.