Australian sharemarket racks up third straight day of gains, led by mining, energy and bank stocks

The ASX rose for the third straight day, led by resources stocks on the back of higher commodity prices and helped by banks including Macquarie.

The Australian sharemarket continued its winning streak for the third straight day, with mining, energy and financial stocks leading the gains.

The S&P/ASX200 closed 0.6 per cent higher at 7066 while the All Ordinaries Index rose the same amount to 7299.1.

“Keep in mind the market did last week actually tumble and the improvements haven’t actually been overly enthusiastic either,” CommSec analyst Steve Daghlian said.

Unlike yesterday’s session, the local bourse did not lose much steam in afternoon trade after peaking just before midday.

Mr Daghlian said the resource sector was buoyed by higher commodity prices across the board overnight, including oil, gold, copper and aluminium.

“The big standout has been iron ore, which has jumped close to four per cent. That follows on from a 10 per cent decline a day earlier so it is just recouping a portion of those declines.

“Of course keep in mind that last week we had iron ore prices hitting record highs on three occasions ... partly because of continued buying from China.”

Iron ore prices hit record highs three times last week.

Rio Tinto strengthened 2.12 per cent to $128.71, BHP gained 1.86 per cent to $50.52, Fortescue lifted 2.04 per cent to $23.57, Mineral Resources rose 3.42 per cent to $46.33, Pilbara Minerals surged 7.91 per cent to $1.16 and OZ Minerals jumped 6.4 per cent to $26.40.

OMG chief executive Ivan Tchourilov said Fortescue was the single most purchased stock today across his company’s client base.

“Even after a bit of a sell-off in iron ore over the past few days, margins for the major producers are still extremely robust, so unless commodity prices fall significantly from here, these stocks should continue to be well supported by the market,” Mr Tchourilov said.

BHP spin-off South32 added 2.37 per cent to $3.03 after providing an update to a conference, saying operations continued to perform strongly.

Among the gold miners, Australia’s largest producer of the precious metal Newcrest added 1.09 per cent to $28.66 and Northern Star advanced 2.05 per cent to $11.45 but St Barbara plunged 9.02 per cent to $1.86 after blaming contractor Macmahon for personnel shortfalls at its Leonora operations in Western Australia.

The downbeat update from gold miner St Barbara sent its shares substantially lower. Picture: Alain Jocard/AFP

That prompted a full year production guidance downgrade for the mine while ore variability was the reason for lowering the output forecast for its Simberi operation in Papua New Guinea. Costs estimates for both projects were increased.

In the energy sector, Woodside put on 2.09 per cent to $22.99, Oil Search climbed 2.6 per cent to $3.95 and Beach Energy gained 2.73 per cent to $1.31.

Woodside announced it was quitting its 50 per cent interest in the stalled Kitimat LNG project in Canada, which operator Chevron announced its plan to sell out of in December 2019.

The costs of Woodside’s exit are expected to dent the company’s full year net profit by US$40–60m ($A51-77m).

Acting chief executive Meg O’Neill said the divestment would allow Woodside to focus on its Scarborough LNG development in WA, with the final investment decision targeted in the second half of 2021, and the Sangomar oil project underway offshore Senegal.

Woodside is abandoning a stalled Canadian project to focus on two others making progress in WA and Senegal.

It will keep an interest in the Liard Basin gas resource that forms part of the Kitimat project.

Commonwealth Bank hit another record high, reaching an intraday peak of $98.85 before closing three cents firmer at $97.76.

ANZ added 1.43 per cent to $27.70, National Australia Bank appreciated 1.23 per cent to $26.37, Westpac was up 0.5 per cent at $25.46 and Macquarie Group gained 2.35 per cent to $154.13.

In the tech sector, buy-now-pay-later market leader Afterpay lifted 0.07 per cent to $86.52, accounting software provider Xero slid 0.53 per cent to $118.12 and logistics software company Wisetech Global retreated 0.66 per cent to $25.56.

BNPL company Zip strengthened 1.71 per cent to $7.14 while data analytics software firm Nuix rocketed 11.47 per cent to $3.50, recouping yesterday’s losses, after providing a three-hour investor day presentation.

Nuix shares have tanked since it debuted on the ASX just a few months ago following a $1.8bn initial public offer. Chief executive Rod Vawdrey has now apologised to investors. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Nuix on Monday responded to Fairfax (Nine) media reports claiming internal documents had detailed big concerns about the business - including problems with key products and worries it was losing ground to competitors - by insisting its performance and market position was strong.

Mr Daghlian noted the report was the latest in a string of Fairfax articles about Niux that were “quite critical” after its made its market debut in December and the company had sought to “settle some nerves”.

Building products company James Hardie slumped 4.51 per cent to $40.20 despite reporting a quarterly profit lift.

The Aussie dollar was buying 78.02 US cents, 55 British pence and 64.02 Euro cents in afternoon trade.