Australian sharemarket closes higher at new 5-month high

Commodity prices helped lift stocks as analysts said the ASX showed signs of breaking out of a long, tight trading range.

Commodity prices helped lift the share market.

Local shares ended the session higher, on a fresh five-month high, amid commodity price strength and positive sentiment in global markets.

The benchmark S & P/ASX200 was up 42.838 points, or 0.73 per cent, at 5889.602 points. The broader All Ordinaries index was up 40.865 points, or 0.69 per cent, at 5958.102 points.

The market has risen 4.2 per cent in the last eight days, the strongest eight-session gain since the post-US election “Trump bump” began.

Commbank’s Tom Piotrowski said the share market was showing strong signs it is beginning to break out of a tight, months-long trading range, against a backdrop of stronger global growth increasing appetite for materials-heavy Australian equity.

“(China) figures have been quite optimistic around the resource space, the most recent import figures in relation to oil, and the most recent import figures for iron ore have all been quite positive,” Mr Piotrowski said.

The market closed less than two per cent off fresh multi-year highs above 6000 points.

BHP added 1.34 per cent to $27.31 and Fortescue climbed 0.4 per cent to $4.96.

Rio Tinto rose 1.29 per cent to $71.46, after chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques hailed a good quarter result, despite it missing third quarter copper production expectations.

“The business performed very well in the September quarter, with a strong quarterly production performance and a wave of productivity improvements embedded through our operations,” Mr Jacques said.

In financials, NAB edged up 0.5 per cent to $32.41. Commonwealth Bank rose 1.36 per cent to $78.25 and Westpac gained 0.81 per cent to $33.42.

“When you look at the bank index it seems to have turned a corner in the context of the difficulties that we’ve seen over the course of the last three months so it’s pulled out of that decline,” Mr Piotrowski said.

ANZ improved 0.6 per cent to $30.34 after it announced it would sell its superannuation and financial planning businesses to IOOF Holdings for $975 million, in its latest move to spin off assets to refocuses on local retail banking.

Oil stocks made solid gains after an uptick in the price of oil as continued tensions in the Middle East played into the improvement in prices, Mr Piotrowski said.

Woodside Petroleum gained 0.64 per cent to $29.76. Oil Search strengthened 0.42 per cent to $7.24 and Santos lifted 0.95 to $4.23.

Elsewhere, Qantas jumped 2.88 per cent to $6.43 after the airline unveiled its new “game-changer” 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft.